


i will go to you like the first snow

by WennyT



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, 쓸쓸하고 찬란하神 - 도깨비 | Goblin (TV)
Genre: AU of warring states!homin AU (I can finally say this), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Dokkaebi (Goblin/鬼怪), Inspired by Goblin (K-drama), M/M, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Not Reincarnation, Other, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-01-24 05:38:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 51,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21333130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WennyT/pseuds/WennyT
Summary: Roommate needed. Gothic mansion on the outskirts of Seoul. One-and-a-half storeys with extensive grounds. Sits in a breezy South to face a sunny North. No preference for male or female, although third genders and third eyes are not welcome. None below twenty nor above eight hundred and eighty-eight need apply. Must know how to be clean. A steady heart is preferred. Please expect occasional atmospheric disturbances. Willing to take rent payment upfront or in instalments. Interested? Call +82-010-xxx-xxxx.
Relationships: Jung Yunho/Shim Changmin
Comments: 225
Kudos: 1001





	1. i. i know what you did this autumn

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [與寡常在](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21088763) by [WennyT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WennyT/pseuds/WennyT). 

紛紛擾擾千百年以後 

一切又從頭

* * *

WANTED: 

Roommate needed. Gothic mansion on the outskirts of Seoul. One-and-a-half storeys with extensive grounds. Sits in a breezy South to face a sunny North. No preference for male or female, although third genders and third eyes are not welcome. None below twenty nor above eight hundred and eighty-eight need apply. Must know how to be clean. A steady heart is preferred. Please expect occasional atmospheric disturbances. Willing to take rent payment upfront or in installments. Interested? Call +82-010-xxx-xxxx.

\--

Lunar Calendar: xx day of the Ninth Month

Year of the Earth Pig (Ji Hai). 

Month of Jia Xu. Day of Bing Shen. 

Today is a day that clashes with Tigers, and with an Evil South. It is auspicious for residence relocation, as well as engagement and marriage ceremonies. However, today will not be ideal for funerals, nor for bed instalments. Take care of possible inclement weather, and umbrellas are advised. 

Auspicious timing: 

2300-0059, 0100-0259, 0700-0859, 0900-1059, 1300-1459, 1900-2059.

\--

Yunho straightens his left cuff, brushing off a tiny piece of lint from his suit sleeve. The ironed creases are straightening out from wear, fading into the black. 

Between this, and the faint water smudges dotting the crown of his fedora, he’ll have to drop by the dry cleaners’ again tonight. 

He pauses, and remembers what day it is, and brightens.

Yunho's moving today. He’s finally saved up enough for a house of his own, even though it’s a rental, and he'll have a landlord. But it's finally his own place, after a century of rooftop rooms.

The dry cleaners will have to wait till tomorrow night. 

It’s a rainy autumn day. Seoul’s still busy regardless, a seething, chattering mass of humanity, who hurry along about their daily lives. People brush by him, walking briskly in the other direction, undeterred by the steady drizzle. Overhead, the sky is a low poignant grey. 

In the distance, a siren wails. 

Yunho’s very good at his job. It’s something he knows, and is told to him on a regular basis. 

He works hard, and for long hours. Some of the others grumble how their boss isn’t too good with staff welfare and benefits, and how they don’t get days off these days. Except Sundays, but Sunday’s kind of like a free-for-all without boundaries, and they’re still on standby anyway for large cases.

“What do we need days off for?” Yunho points out, reasonably enough, he thinks. “We’re dead.” 

His senior three classes before him snorts. “Only you, Yunho. Don’t you miss the days when we’d at least get ten days of annual leave off after the Spring Equinox? We’re dead, not robots.” 

“We still have three days off for Spring Equinox, sunbae-nim,” Yunho straightens the edges to his umbrella. 

It’s black as well, to go with his outfit, and sturdy. He hasn’t unfurled it yet, because he saw his senior at the bus stop, and wanted to say hi. 

He gets an eye-roll in return. “The people in this stupid little peninsula barely celebrate that anyway! It’s not the same as having proper leave when I’m still bothered by the same amount of cases. More than usual in some years even, when you have idiots who think it’s elegant poetry to get themselves offed during the old festival of Qing Ming. And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Heechul, Yunho?”

“Never enough times, sunbae-nim,” Yunho offers, polite as you please, to Heechul’s laughter. 

The rain is coming down hard now, practically in sheets. A mortal human won’t be able to see well through it. 

Another siren joins the first. Yunho unfurls his umbrella. 

Heechul trills another laugh, and flutters a languid white hand. “Ah well. No rest for the wicked. I have to get going. I assume the sirens are yours?”

“Yes.” Yunho puts his hat on, and lowers the brim. Touches the little bird brooch he wears, out of habit. “You? The smoke I saw from the luxury flats two intersections down earlier?”

“Bingo,” Heechul smiles, but now there’s no mirth to the crooked curve. He puts his own fedora on. “Family. The father was retrenched. Didn’t take it well.”

Yunho glances at the thick stack of embossed name cards in his hands. The traditional Mandarin characters are stark and red in bold slashing strokes. “An entire bus-full of high schoolers. One bus driver. No one is at fault. The roads are too slippery in this weather.” 

“Ah, well,” Heechul brings up his umbrella. It’s the same red as the ink for the characters on their cards. They bow to each other from the waist. Behind them, a bus approaches. “Somewhere, a goblin must be throwing a tantrum. That’s the only explanation, since our boss still doesn’t quite like the Genesis flood narrative.” 

Yunho snorts. “If that’s true, it’s a callous goblin indeed.” The doors to the bus open. Confused teenagers are stumbling out. Someone is screaming.

Heechul waves him off. “Everyone knows goblins don’t have feelings. There’s always some nasty thing or other that’s gotten their hearts too shrivelled for that. Go on. Get. I know you’re busy.”

Yunho tips the edge of his fedora at Heechul in farewell. He walks to the schoolboy nearest to him. He’s shivering and crying, arms around two whimpering female classmates. “Lee Minhyeong?” 

\--

It’s the last of them. She’s sitting in front of him, shoulders shaking but not from the cold. Her hair’s still dripping wet, because the bus had skidded on its side, and all the windows shattered. 

Yunho had offered her a blanket earlier, but she declined very politely, and asked in a trembling whisper if he could turn the heat up.

He does. She’s got both hands on the pine-and-oak table now, clasped together. “I-I-I-I’m. Still cold.”

He pauses. Doesn’t lie to her. Puts the kettle on. “The dead cannot feel the heat.” 

“That’s g-g-good, in s-s-summer,” she tries to joke, then bursts into tears.

Yunho waits for her to calm herself. The water needs to boil, anyway. When she weeps so hard that she’s almost bent double, he gets up quietly, and goes to pick a teacup for her.

He’s gotten glimpses of her over the years, when he collects souls in her neighbourhood. A large part of Seoul is under Yunho’s care, and he tries to look in on them every now and then, when he can. It's not just the dead that he cares about.

He does like the children in his district. They laugh freely. It’s a joy to watch. Quite a few of them are on the bus today.

Before, she always seems like a cheerful girl. He selects a pretty sky blue teacup for her, the sides carved with curling white daisies. By the time he comes back to the table, she’s subsided into hiccuping sniffles. 

The kettle is whistling. 

Her eyes follow him as he takes it off of the burner, and measures out tea leaves for the strainer. “I didn’t think the afterlife would be so… advanced.”

Yunho follows her gaze to the gas burner, and snorts. “Well. One must ha, advance with the times, or be left behind.”

“What if I want to be left behind,” she blurts, and ducks her head. Yunho places the strainer into the teapot. He pours boiling hot water into the pitcher, for the water to cool slightly. 

He waits.

“What if I don’t drink the tea,” she whispers, after a while. “What if I don’t leave.”

“Being offered the tea is a luxury,” Yunho says. The water’s cooled enough, with only slight tendrils of steam rising now. He pours it into the teapot, and covers the lid. “It makes you forget, Yeri. Forgetting is a luxury.”

“It’s your job, right?” She ignores him to ask. “To catch us, if we stay?”

“To help you,” Yunho corrects. He places a finger on the purple clay of the teapot’s body. Still too hot. “Not to catch. To guide. Spirits…. Change, when they stay.” 

Yeri shivers again. “Do they become like the ghosts you see in horror films?”

He smiles at her, and doesn’t answer. The tea is ready. He places the teacup in front of her, and pours.

She curves both hands around the wide brim, and jerks in surprise. “Oh. This is warm! I can feel it.”

He smiles at her again.

It has the opposite effect on her. Her lips tremble, and a lone tear falls. “I’m really dead, aren’t I? My mum… She’s going to be so sad. I hope she’s going to be okay. At least she’ll have my sisters. At least she won’t be alone.” 

He folds his hands and bows his head. Yeri doesn’t cry again, though. She sniffs, and stares down at the steaming tea for a few beats. Then she brings the teacup up. Drinks. 

When she puts the teacup down again, it’s empty. There’s still a small droplet clinging to the edge. 

Yunho doesn’t move. “If you look to your left, there should be a door.” He advises, voice soft.

She turns, “oh! There it is.” 

The girl rises to step forward, but pauses. Turns back to dip into a ninety-degree bow at him. “Thank you, ahjussi,” she says, before straightening. She meets his eyes dead on. “I used to see you around our neighbourhood when I was a child. A few of us did. You looked lonely.”

Yunho startles slightly. She takes a deep breath and bows again. “You’re very kind. I really appreciated it.” 

He blinks, and stands. Like this, he towers over her. He bows down as well, a slighter inclination than what she’s performed to him out of respect. “Go forth in peace,” he says formally.

She bows to him one more time, and puts her hand on the doorknob. She turns it.

Yunho stands there for a while, still and in silence, before shaking himself to pick up the teacup. Then he walks to the back of his tea parlour, and hangs a left, to store the used teacup with so many others in his lacquered wooden shelves.

\--

Changmin is over two thousand years old and he is not in a good mood.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” He rages at the boy, shaking a piece of paper, a flyer, sadly crumpled in his fist. “Really. It’s a question I need answered. What the fuck! Were you thinking!”

“Uncle…” The boy shies, but he’s got a fat bottom lip and his expression is maybe one that he wore when he was five, and begging Changmin to sneak him boiled sweets. Changmin wants to smack it off of him. He settles for crumpling the flyer and flinging it at the boy instead. 

It bounces off of his forehead. The boy claps a hand dramatically over it, eyes shiny and wide. “Ouch! Uncle!”

“It’s fucking paper, you spoilt nitwit,” Changmin snarls, the full force of his displeasure maybe underscored by the rumble of thunder over head. A second later he feels his hair and shirt start to dampen. Casting a vicious eye upward, he growls at the hovering storm cloud, “fuck off outside. I’m not in the mood.”

Chastened, the cloud withdraws. It starts pouring outside the window.

There is a shadow sneaking in Changmin’s peripheral vision. He whirls around. “Minseok!”

The boy - Minseok- pauses in exaggerated tiptoe, halfway up the steps to his foyer. Changmin’s foyer. A foyer that will now be tainted by the grubby footsteps of a mortal commoner stranger. “Yesssss, Uncle?”

“Cancel it!” Changmin throws a little zing of electricity at the boy’s ass, as punishment. He yelps and straightens into what would have been a properly deferential bow, except that he’s got a hand with fingers crossed over each other that he thinks Changmin doesn’t see, and his shoulders are up midway in a defensive shrug. “Cancel this fucking- whatever- lease!”

“I can’t,” Minseok spreads his hands out. “It’s a contract! We signed it. With our lawyers and witnesses, and our family register stamps, and everything.”

Changmin feels like his head will explode into fire. He raises a hand to check. His head is indeed on fire. 

He takes a deep, very long breath, and reins himself in, just barely. Sends another zing of electricity into Minseok’s ass for his idiocy. “I order you to cancel it! Your family swore to serve me as long as the Kim line lays unbroken. You owe me your life, imbecile!”

“You were willing to let me starve to death,” Minseok sniffs petulantly, a hand rubbing at his posterior. “I asked you for help, and you refuse to take my side to fight the forces of evil! I asked you! You told me I should be thinking of business and entrepreneurship and make my own money instead! So I did.”

Changmin pulls at his hair. In the olden days, he’s beheaded men for less. “You- the forces of evil?_ He’s your grandfather! _” 

Minseok sulks. “He’s an overly-controlling dickhead.”

“You’re twenty-nine!” Changmin waves a hand, and the wall-light explode in a chorus of agreement. Sighing, he waves his hand again, and they reknit themselves in reluctance. “He just wants you to get a proper fucking job! And you did go mad and buy the neighbouring mansion with fucking money that’s not fucking yours yet!” 

Minseok’s fat lower lip gets fatter. “You’re always on his side.”

Changmin thinks he’s lost the plot. Changmin knows he’s lost the plot. He rakes a hand through his rumpled hair and tries for reason. “That’s not the point. The point is that you agreed to let strangers into my home. My! Home. Not yours. And now you are telling me you were paid for it. And you can’t cancel it!”

Minseok examines the manicure on his fingers. “One stranger, although he’s not really a stranger. I think maybe we can see him as a nice neighbourhood brother? He has got impeccable taste in suits. I think you’ll approve. When we met for contract signing, he was in classic Dior. Not a single crease anywhere!”

There’s a throbbing above his left eye. Changmin thinks he’s got a headache. He erupts again, and there’s blue fire at his fingertips and Changmin tosses it at the wall sconces since they had re-knitted themselves for him. They glow brighter in mute approval. “You took money for it! And you signed a contract! Why are you so stupid!”

“Hey,” Minseok says, hurt. “The money is not the point. But it’s probably this man’s precious savings, Uncle. And we made a promise to him. To cancel it now will render him homeless! You always taught me I should keep promises, remember?” 

Changmin clutches at his head. His brain is imploding. “Homeless- Keep promises-”

The doorbell rings. 

They look at each other. Minseok brightens. “I think this must be Nice Neighbourhood Brother in a Suit, now! Let me get the door.”

He scrambles for it, Changmin in hot pursuit. They reach the door just as Changmin’s got a long arm around Minseok’s waist, roaring, and Minseok’s got a hand on the door handle, what a disobedient child, “my door, my house, don’t you fucking dare-”

It swings open.

In the rain is a stranger. 

He’s got a hat and a black suit. His lips are red and his nose is sharp and his suit is dry. His eyes are hidden by that low black fedora he’s got on. One hand rises, pale, and brushes the tip of a finger against the brim. It lowers. He’s just white skin and red lips.

Changmin and Minseok pause in their tussle.

The edge of the black fedora rises. 

The stranger gazes at them. He’s got eyes with a feline upward tilt to them. They’re thickly lashed. Twin bold black brows frame them, slashing into the arch of his nose bridge. A sharply clean jawline completes the look. It’s an acute slant above two inches of neck that slopes down to again be hidden by a crisp collar decorated by a black tie. 

Changmin blinks. 

The red lips part. “Hello. Kim Minseok?”

Behind him, white starts to fall. It’s the first snow of the year. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "In the drama Dokkaebi (The Lonely and Great Shining God), Lee Dongwook-ssi and Gong Yoo-ssi are so cool. They're older than us, but they're such handsome men. I told him we should try and age like them." (Shim Changmin, 2017)
> 
> "I think Lee Dongwook-ssi and Gongyoo-ssi are cool men. But I feel we should try and surpass them." (Jung Yunho, 2017)
> 
> "... I don't think it's necessary to surpass them..." (Shim Changmin, 2017)
> 
> This thing was eating my brain and to be frank, giving me anxiety attacks during a time when I should be happy and fluffy. So here I am, posting it before I can third or fourth guess myself and go down a path I really don't wish to go. 
> 
> It will be chaptered. 
> 
> x
> 
> Comments are love and fuel writers.


	2. ii. interview with the reaper

They eye each other cagily, from opposite ends of the elongated sofa. 

_ Goblin_, is the cool acknowledgement said into Changmin’s head.

_ Reaper_, Changmin snarls back right between that thing’s ears.

Minseok’s nervously fluttering, and offering coffee. Changmin wants to shout at him for giving offerings to the restless dead that isn’t theirs, because it makes it harder to oust them. He settles for glaring instead at the flyer Minseok has un-crumpled for him, and at the list of conditions Minseok had stupidly included. 

“He passes all of them,” Minseok whispers, on his way to hand the reaper a cup of coffee, served in Changmin’s finest bone china. 

“Thank you. Kim Minseok?”

Changmin’s glare makes a crack develop in the fragile handle, where the reaper is delicately grasping it to bring it up to that red red mouth. It is unfazed and Minseok is the one who turns an interesting shade of purple and chokes, “Uncle, don’t! That’s from your 1792 collection by Wedgewood!” 

Changmin relents. He mends the crack, because he does like that particular collection, and when the creature had the temerity to look _ amused _ instead. Well!

Changmin will show it _ amusement _ even if it’s the last thing he does. 

He fires off questions abruptly. 

“Male or female?”

“I identify as male.”

“Third gender?”

“Not applicable.”

“Third eyes? Third hand? Legs?”

“None. The only eyes I have are the ones on my face.”

“That’s what they all say, until they bend over…” Changmin says distrustfully, thinking of an incident he had in Kyoto, late at night after too many shots of sake poured by shrine monks. To this day he still wonders sometimes if the poor creature can only see if it strips down and stumbles around arse-up. 

The reaper doesn’t deign to give a response. Changmin continues. 

“Age?” 

“My memory tells me I am two-and-six hundred this year.” 

Minseok’s refilling the sugar, and murmurs a low, “oh, Nice Neighbourhood Brother is twenty-six years old? Younger than me…” 

He drifts back into the kitchen to get cream. It’s as though he hasn’t spoken. 

The creature’s gaze bores into Changmin. 

Changmin skips the next line for, “you have a steady heart?”

“Precisely four beats a minute.”

“You can afford to pay rent payment upfront?”

“I paid that dear child rent payment in full, and in cash,” it says steadily. 

There’s a lull. Minseok comes back, and perches on the arm of the sofa nearest to Changmin. Changmin enunciates carefully, “you know how to be clean?” 

The thing gestures at itself. Clean fedora, combed hair, neat suit, polished shoes. “If you are questioning my state of personal grooming, perhaps it is better that you call me Yunho. I believe I know how to be clean. Kim Minseok reviewed my outfit and agreed it is a good gauge of my personal cleanliness as well. Kim Minseok?”

Beside him, Minseok opens his mouth and Changmin slaps a hasty hand over it. “Don’t answer it! It’s the third time he’s called your name for you to answer. Don’t you know what it is?”

Minseok blinks behind Changmin’s hand and gurgles. Changmin lets go, only to hear “...a Nice Neighbourhood Brother? In an excellent suit today that doesn’t seem to be from any of the big fashion houses.”

The reaper bows to the compliment but answers only, “it’s bespoke.”

To Changmin, it utters, “I believe this little interrogation should be sufficient. Otherwise, I do have the contract on my side.” 

He flicks a glance at Minseok, whose gaze is darting between the two of them, like a spectator at a tennis match. “It’s legally binding. I have three copies and the original already shared with relevant authority figures. I shall not tell you where they are sitting because I’m not stupid. You look like you’re ready to spring from your seat to burn them all.”

“Into ashes,” Changmin agrees darkly. He looks at Minseok. Then he looks at Yunho.

The latter offers him another placid smile that doesn’t reach those dark eyes. It looks alien on that face. Somehow, those features look like they’re made for laughter. Changmin shakes his head and whacks a hand against his nape. Does passing one’s two thousand and three hundred birthday some years ago mean that one might be headed for senility? 

Yunho observes him with interest. “The boy signed on the original lease document personally too. With his family fountain pen carved with his personal name, as well as his personal family stamp. We had four witnesses. Everything is above board.”

“You!” Changmin whirls onto Minseok, who shrinks back theatrically. He deflates. There’s blue fire sparking at his fingertips again. He takes another deep breath and decides to ignore Minseok for the sake of his sanity and (hopefully not) senility. 

Turns back to Yunho. Changmin forces the words out of his mouth, “how long is it for.”

“Beg pardon?” The creature actually looks like he’s enjoying it. There’s another slight smile hanging on its face. 

“How long.” Changmin can’t bring himself to say ‘are you staying’, so he settles for growling, “is the lease for.”

“Fifty years.” 

“Fifty y-” Changmin shots another vicious glare at Minseok, who ducks his head and pulls out his phone to play with. Changmin can feel his eyes narrowing to slits. “Is that the latest Samsung Galaxy Fold.”

Thunder rumbles again, an ominous drumroll. Minseok gulps and eks out a “Maybe?” while slipping the scrutinised device in question hurriedly back into his pockets. 

Yunho is looking calmly at its fingernails. “I’m sure fifty years is but the blink of an eye to a thing like you.”

“Blink of an- _ A thing like me_.” Changmin doesn’t know what pisses him off more. There’s a flash of lightning outside in the garden, and an almond tree already bare of leaves is lit on fire. 

Minseok jumps in his seat and moans, “oh Uncle, now you’ve done it. How am I supposed to explain this to the head gardener? _ How am I supposed to explain it to Grandfather? _”

Neither of the other two occupants in the living room pay any attention to him. Yunho sits straighter and says unsmiling, “of course, if you wish to terminate the lease, that is fine with me as well. But please note there is thirty percent interest in crediting the payment back to me, and,” the room grows ever so slightly colder, “I get to take the boy.” 

Changmin looks at it. 

In the kitchen, the crystal water glasses shatter in the cupboards in a tinkle of muffled rings. 

Minseok pales, and laughs nervously at the man in the suit adjacent to him. “Crystal! It can be so fragile after they’re past two hundred! Talk about spontaneous. Haha, breaking. Maybe haaaaa because of atmospheric pressure or. Something, haha…” 

Changmin raises a hand. The almond tree outside stops being on fire. Because he’s still angry at Minseok, he ignores the jagged crumbling that is the row of Waterfords. 

“Fifty years is an extremely short period of time.” He stands up, and walks right up to the still seated reaper. Bends close to the creature, so close that their breaths mingle. 

What an abominable beast. Changmin’s pretty sure reapers don’t even need to breathe anymore. But this one is still pretending to be human. 

Leaning in uncomfortably close, he gazes into its dark dead eyes.“Today is our first day,” breathes against its lips, “_roommate_.”

\--

“Roommate” is a bit of a misnomer, as Minseok the very kind mortal informs him. 

Per the lease, Yunho gets the second master bedroom with its attached balcony, a study and a private sitting room all to himself on the first storey, and with common access to all the ‘public rooms’ on the ground storey. 

Outside, he’s informed that the gardens too are open to him, if he feels like mucking out in the dirt in such chilly weather. Otherwise, the head gardener pops in quietly (“Uncle doesn’t like to be reminded that there are strangers near his nest”) on Saturday every week to do landscape maintenance with his assistants. 

Yunho’s fine with that. He doesn’t have a green thumb. Too many things he touches turn out to be dead. 

The only places that he’s barred from is apparently the goblin’s private rooms, also on the first storey. The library Yunho had peeked into when he was shown around the house (now he realises that must have conveniently conducted whilst the goblin was out, an undoubtedly rare occasion) is unfortunately private and sole domain of the creature’s. 

“Uncle will kill me if I allow that room to be shared by you under the definition of ‘public rooms’ in the lease,” Minseok says. 

Yunho shrugs. That’s fine with him. If he needs light reading, he can always head to the reapers’ library at his office. Nothing quite collects books like limbo does. Books have a tendency to lose themselves. 

“Well! No questions, then?” Minseok claps his hands together, beaming. He’s really quite a lovely boy. Yunho allows himself to smile at the child, really smile. 

It makes the boy’s eyes go dazed for a bit. Oops. Yunho coughs, and looks around. They’re on the first (really a half) storey. It’s only half the space of the ground storey, really a loft, that divides into both sets of private rooms. The opposing doors stand facing each other at a short landing where they both stand now, overlooking down at the main living room and a little bit of the conjoined dining space. 

Because Minseok looks like he needs a moment to catch his breath, Yunho folds his hands behind his back and bows. “No questions. Thank you for the tour, Kim Minseok. I know we went through this previously when I looked at the house with the realtor, but,” he casts a glance around and nods in approval, “it feels different when it’s your own house.”

“Right.” Minseok says, and then jumps when a distant shout goes, “my house! My place! _ You _ are only temporary.”

They ignore the remote disturbance. Minseok looks askance at him. “Can I help you get your things? Are you getting a new bed? Right now what we have in the second master is only a twin. I had people come in to dress it in fresh linens first, of course.” 

“Oh, no,” Yunho demurs. Today’s only good for residence relocation, but not bed instalments, and he tells Minseok as such.

“Right, right.” Minseok says again. Rocks back on his heels. “This is where I leave you then?”

“That is fine,” Yunho confirms. Again another distant angry snarl, “and you better take yourself straight to your grandfather’s office to confess your sins, before I rat you out!”

“Don’t worry about Uncle,” Minseok whispers, lowering his voice until Yunho has to lean in close to hear. “He’s a bit grumpy. But other than fog and clouds and maybe a bit of fire here and there, he’s really harmless. Sometimes it rains indoors, but he doesn’t realise it and all you have to do is to poke him about it, and he’ll stop. Don’t ask him about the gold. If he whines too much, just give him some offerings. Alcohol is the best. He’s partial to soju and baekju and yellow wine made from flowers. Food too. He likes meat. Ramyeon, at night. If he messes with you too much, just steal his suite of mala products.”

“Does it,” Yunho says. He steps back and nods a farewell. 

“I’m on your side, Nice Neighbourhood Brother!” Minseok gives him a jaunty wave, and clatters down the stairs. 

A moment later, a cheerful “bye Uncle I love you don’t be angry at me! Bye, Nice Neighbourhood Brother!” sounds. The front door clicks shut. 

Behind Yunho, the door that is not leading to his rooms swings open. The atmospheric pressure drops, grows thicker. 

Yunho turns. Tilts his head. 

The goblin is leaning against the door frame leading to its own rooms, arms crossed over its chest. It’s got a new set of clothes on. The creature has traded the comfortable-looking hoodie and tracksuit bottoms it was wearing when it answered the door, for a sharp-looking three-piece suit.

Against his better instincts, Yunho’s eyes flicker over the goblin’s shoulders, expertly wrapped in navy pinstripe. He has to admit that the cut is impressive. The goblin itself isn’t that bad to look at, but long legs and a svelte build narrowing down to a trim waist won’t distract Yunho from the fact that it’s still an utter beast. 

The goblin notices, and sneers. “Looking for a new set of funeral clothes?” 

“You just called yourself a corpse,” Yunho points out, and smiles at it, when it snarls. 

“Don’t think this fifty years is going to be smooth sailing,” it warns, pointing a finger at Yunho. Yunho blinks at it, and gives it another smile. He pushes a bit of his persuasive power into it, smile widening despite himself when the creature just narrows its eyes at him, unaffected.

“You should try as hard as you can,” Yunho advises it jovially. “The worst thing you can do to yourself is be half-hearted in your endeavours.” 

That gets him another snarl, and a bolt of electricity flung at him that he casually side-steps. The goblin sniffs, and hisses, “ssssssssyou. Watch out.”

It slams its way back into its rooms, heavy mahogany door whispering shut nevertheless due to machinery and well-oiled hinges. 

Yunho stands in place, and lets loose a snicker. He hasn’t had this much fun in ages. 

The older reapers did gossip before that goblins can be fussy homebodies in their nests and it’s notoriously difficult, if not outright impossible to oust a goblin from its domain. He was shocked earlier, when the child opened the front door to show a goblin instead. But now... 

It sort of makes Yunho want to try. 

He looks around at the landing, and then goes into his rooms. 

He likes this space. 

Maybe if he makes the goblin spontaneously combust from irritation, he can get this dwelling to himself for five hundred years, instead of a mere fifty.

\--

So Yunho moves in properly, selecting auspicious days for each of the major tasks, from the almanac he carries on his person. 

His new bed, king-sized and eight sets of new linens, is delivered on a Monday when it is positive for bed delivery and instalments. It clashes West, but there’s a lovely breeze coming from the North. 

Yunho’s not very good with household chores (he spends too much time at his job to practise at this), but he finds himself dressing his bed up in the freshly-ironed sheets, humming. 

The goblin just looks at the mortal delivery men trotting in and out of the mansion, a sour twist to its lips. 

The first time Yunho’s groceries are delivered to their doorstep, the creature drifts downstairs attracted by the noise, as Yunho chats with the mortal courier, then sends him on his way. 

It’s nosy, poking into Yunho’s bags scattered at the doorstep. What an ill-mannered creature.

Yunho glares at it, and says primly, “it is rude to snoop through the belongings of others. Not even spirits do it, until they warp _ and have no sense of morals left_.”

“My house,” is the smug reply. Then the goblin wrinkles its nose in disgust, because it’s done rifling through Yunho’s things like a common thief. “What’s wrong with you! It’s all vegetables and beancurd and mushrooms and soy and fruits! Are you planting a strawberry field!” 

It says ‘beancurd’ like a spirit would say ‘murderer’. 

Yunho gives it a bland smile, and bends down for the bags. He hefts them. “I’m vegetarian.”

The goblin looks like Yunho’s just told it he eats children. “That’s just wrong! You’re sick.”

Yunho ignores it, and heads to the kitchen to offload into the refrigerator. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> x
> 
> Comments are love.


	3. iii. paranormal activity

Yunho’s clothes arrive, on a lovely waning Thursday with a high sickle moon. He feels better with his two work suits and visiting suit and annual reaper seminar suit and their spares all in one place. 

There are some creases to his black greatcoat, from where it has been trapped in its dust bag. Yunho checks his spare coat as well, housed in an identical looking bag. It’s got the same problem. 

He’ll probably need to head to the dry cleaners’ tomorrow evening, after he knocks off. 

The goblin leans against Yunho’s door frame, head craning in morbid fascination. Yunho supposes it’s a pretty enough thing with that face and that body, but it contorts its face too much into ugly _ -well- _ goblin-like expressions. “Are those body bags? And you’re a reaper, why are you dressed as an undertaker anyway?” 

“Don’t you have a job?” Yunho asks it boredly in reply, flapping his greatcoat extra hard, to get rid of the dust. And also to see the creature cough. 

That may have brought a smile to his own face. 

“My job is to be a goblin and grow gold,” the thing says, baring its teeth at him in a razor-sharp grimace that may be called a grin. By a blind man. 

“Figures.” Yunho turns away, to unpack his battalion of black shoes. There’s a scuff on one of them. He’ll have to polish it during the weekend. 

Over by the doorway, a malicious presence still lingers. “What’s that supposed to mean!”

“I can smell the stink of metal and rust on you.” Yunho sniffs, then decides to walk over. The goblin is dressed in a tee and comfortable looking trousers today, but it’s got an extremely thick cardigan thrown on, knee-length and barely appropriate for the October weather. 

Yunho reaches it in a few strides, and then pushes at the edge of one wide sleeve. He grabs the goblin by the bare skin on its forearm. The creature yelps in horror, big round eyes bulging. “What are you doing!”

Huh. There’s nothing. Yunho lets go. 

The goblin lights him on fire. 

Yunho squawks, and pats the flames out from his greatcoat. He’s lucky that their boss allows them to have fire-proof clothing tailor-made. It’ll be hard collecting souls from fiery deaths otherwise. Reapers are flame-retardant, but clothing and fabrics, not so much. 

He’s still being hissed at. “Why did you touch me! I don’t like to be touched! Much less by strangers! How dare you!” 

Yunho rolls his eyes and hangs his greatcoat up. “Stop fussing. I just wanted to see if you’re a money grubbing pawnbroker in your past life… _ Changmin_.”

“How did you,” The thing known as Changmin starts, then lights Yunho on fire again, just for the hell of it. Yunho just rolls his eyes and makes the air colder. It does the trick. 

The goblin shrinks back into its thick woolly cardigan. “This is an invasion of privacy!” 

“So is inviting yourself into my room,” Yunho points out. He gets an open-mouthed snarl, then the creature -_Changmin- _ stomps out, fog trailing behind him in great billows.

“I believe I’ve won the match today,” Yunho calls out behind him gleefully, and can’t resist cackling when his door whispers close of its own volition just slightly harder than usual. 

Strange, though. The goblin doesn’t have a past life. 

Yunho only got glimpses of some flowers -pink?- then blood. A lot of it. And a name, “Changmin”, clear as day. Not quite how a mortal soul’s past life will play out in his head, whenever Yunho touches their bare skin. 

The goblin must have become a goblin in its first life thus bringing an unnatural end and then beginning for itself. It’s the only explanation. 

Yunho wonders if that act itself was of benevolence, or perhaps it is divine punishment. Then he remembers his black silk pyjamas are not yet unpacked, and squats down with an exclamation of dismay. 

\--

Changmin makes it a point to stay at home all hours of the day, just to piss the reaper off. Make it realise that the house is Changmin’s and moving in as an unwanted tenant means he’ll have to see its landlord everyday.

He only realises three weeks into it that the reaper doesn’t care. 

It trudges in and out of the house anyway, because it’s got -this is still to Changmin’s horror- a job, due to its very nature. 

Instead, the reaper’s content to bring its filthy depravities into Changmin’s home, like filling his fridge with horrid things like granola and quinoa and kale and acai. They don’t sound Korean nor Japanese nor Chinese nor even English. 

Its avocados are crowding out Changmin’s slabs of precious wagyu in the chiller. Changmin tries to sneakily drop them into the rubbish bin (by purposeful mistake… perhaps), but they have a distressing tendency of finding their way back and multiplying. 

The reaper has an annoying habit of pushing the lever for the sink’s tap all the way to the ‘cold’ side. The first time Changmin turns on the tap without checking, his hands nearly freeze into icicles. 

It makes a big fuss about going to the dry cleaners for its endless parade of black suits, but Changmin’s walked in on it more than once hanging home clothes out to dry, while humming. And even after the clothes dry, they’re rolled up into tubes with their wrinkles anyway. It’s obscene. 

Changmin’s got a dryer, something Minseok has taken advantage of whenever he had to crash in the living room after a night of partying and wanted to wash the smell of fag smoke and beer off before he headed home. 

It’s the twenty-first century. Why are there creatures _ still drying things by hand _? 

Mystery of the ages. Imponderable question.

Changmin doesn’t know who cleans his clothes. He asks Minseok, only to get a laughing, “Uncle! Grandfather’s servants, of course! What did you think! House elves?” so that’s that. 

\--

It’s a Tuesday evening, and Changmin’s planted his bum very firmly onto his sofa. 

Minseok’s not that useless. He introduced Changmin to Netflix about a year ago, and Changmin’s hooked. 

He’s fallen into the rabbit hole of historical Asian dramas because the modern children in Korea and Japan and China have gotten into the habit of producing them in the last century with the rise of the fourth Industrial Revolution, and so far demand seems to be outstripping supply. 

In the span of a few short decades, the quality has improved, such that Changmin actually enjoys watching them now. The plots are still particularly puerile, but at least the historical inaccuracies in what the children seem to think pass off as clothing in _ his _ times, seem to be lessening. 

It allows him enough amusement that he’s able to laugh at them and still enjoy his irritation, and not set the television on fire.

Not that he’s done that for years. That only happened twice, back when television was a new thing, and Minseok’s grandfather was a very young man. In Changmin’s defence, he was adjusting to the concept of television after centuries of watching plays, and hit gotten himself riled up by a particularly idiotic villain. 

Anyway. It’s a lovely Tuesday, and he’s in a good enough mood that the skies are clear outside. 

The autumn chill is crisp in the air, and he’s an old man, so Changmin’s got a chenille throw tucked around him and pillows stacked behind his neck and back. He’s made some nachos with grilled beef skirt and a heaping of Monterey Jack, and he’s got a bottle of soju open and warmed.

It’s looking to be a great night. He cues up the episode, preparing to laugh his way through it.

The show he’s watching now follows some crazy ass mermaid in modern day Seoul, but suddenly there’s a reincarnation subplot, and it’s cutting in between twenty-first century Korea and fifteen-century Joseon. He choked on his beer the last episode when that came out and sniggered for a full five minutes at all the mistakes the costume department made in the hanboks.

He’s only on the fourth episode, but already he’s cackled so hard that he was on the floor a little while ago because the plot is quite mental. The mermaid girl went to Spain and rode bicycles in slow motion with some handsome actor conman she meets. There were soap bubbles in the air and some movie goons got beaten up with the bicycle and then they somehow jump off a cliff into the sea together. It’s perfectly ridiculous and Changmin loves it. 

Because the fates don’t quite like him, Changmin’s sniggering into his cheesy beef nacho chips and chomping loudly on jalapeños while the mermaid girl jumps into an aquarium tank for food (?) and then his front door opens and in walks the Yunho creature.

Changmin flicks a glance its way. 

The reaper thing has clearly just knocked off work. It’s dressed in unrelieved black, from its fedora to its greatcoat and suit, down to its shoes. _Which it has worn into Changmin’s living room. _

“Shoes go either in the shoe rack or outside the house,” Changmin hisses, biting viciously down on a handful of nachos and beef. He’s only still on the sofa because he’s too comfortable to bother getting up for the likes of it. What an uncivilised rat! 

The reaper looks at its feet as though it’s just realised it has them. “Oh, sorry,” it says, and turns to walk back into the foyer. 

Changmin can feel his eyes bulge out slightly despite himself. 

Do spirits eat brains? Maybe the creature has had its brain eaten. It would explain its actions. In the four weeks it’s been here, an unwanted pest, it hasn’t passed up a single opportunity to needle Changmin with an infuriatingly placid smile on its face.

It’s not like it to just… obey.

The Yunho creature comes back, shoeless and sock-less. The greatcoat is still on, and it sits on Changmin’s sofa with a creak. Then it just sort of stalls, and stares at Changmin’s coffee table.

Something about the tilt of its head just niggles at Changmin. 

Maybe that’s why he does what he does next. 

Changmin stretches a foot out of the chenille and pillow nest he’s made, and prods it with a sock-clad toe out of kindness. “Hello, reaper. Have you been bitten? Are you a zombie now?”

It doesn’t look at him. It just looks at its own feet and sighs. 

Changmin hesitates. Onscreen, the mermaid is wailing. He presses the pause button. “Er… Yunho, right?” 

The- _Yunho_ directs his comment at the legs of Changmin’s coffee table, a brilliant find in Italy in the roaring twenties. “Have you ever had a day where you just are not sure what drives you anymore? When you’re in a job and normally it makes you happy because it’s fulfilling, and it lets you help people. But sometimes you see how power gets abused, and the perpetrator doesn’t get away with more than a slap on the wrist, or even gets rewarded instead? Does it make you wonder: what about karma? We’re supposed to be about karma. I am supposed to be karma. But I can’t even make sure the bad people receive the bad karma they deserve. I…” 

He trails off. 

Then he looks over at Changmin, who’s got a piece of beef dangling halfway to his mouth. 

Changmin blinks at him, and chews. 

There’s something teasing at the edge of his brain, but he ignores it in favour of shitting on Yunho, who is making it too damned easy. “No. I don’t need a job. I can grow gold and fling it at people and they do what I want.”

Yunho’s expression grows shuttered. “Right. Yes. My mistake.” 

He makes to get up. 

Changmin’s uneasy. He was hoping for some verbal sparring to stimulate his brain and wit, but this… He blurts out, “did something happen at work?” 

Yunho pauses. 

His hands smooth at the hips of his great coat, and fiddle his pocket flaps. “I caught a lingering soul who has been evading myself and two other reapers for the past twenty years. He’s been gorging on the memorial offerings for a lot of fresh souls, and they end up hungry and lonely. But I had to give him tea, and make him move on today, because he’s overdue for reincarnation. My boss’ orders.” 

“Oh.” Changmin doesn’t know what to do with the information. He pops another slice of beef into his mouth and stalls as much as he can. “But memorial hall offerings aren’t that tasty anyway.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. 

The reaper looks at him with cold dead eyes. Its voice is frostier than Seoul in deep winter. “Tell that to the souls who die painfully, and still have to endure hunger and loneliness even in death.”

Changmin’s still chewing on his beef, but his jaws work slow and slower yet out of unconscious volition. He doesn’t say anything. 

It sneers at him, then strides quickly for the stairs, unbuttoned greatcoat fluttering behind it like demented giant bat wings.

A moment later, a door slams.

Changmin looks at the ceiling, and makes a face. “Overdramatic. You’re just a hyped up tour guide! What’s with all the black and the leather and the sanctimonious judgement! Do you think you’re Batman?”

Nevertheless, his voice is low, and he holds his breath for two seconds. When no snippy barb comes, he presses play for his episode to continue rolling. 

Two minutes later, he turns Netflix off. 

The mermaid’s screeching no longer seems funny. 

Changmin ignores the faint sensation of what might be guilt in his stomach, and goes to sear filet mignon for dinner. 

It isn’t his fault if self-righteous dead things want to take themselves too seriously. 

\--

Yunho leans against the door to his sitting room, and sighs. Then he heads for the sliding glass doors for his balcony, because cold weather always makes him feel better.

He stands in the cold for twenty minutes before he feels less like, well- death.

Maybe he was a bit too hasty in snapping at the goblin. It did look quite blindsided by how Yunho just word-vomited at it. 

He huffs out a weak laugh, and shakes his head. 

Forgetting is a luxury, and perhaps that is the part that enrages him the most about today. Yunho supposes for his own peace of mind, he should hope that that particular soul gets reincarnated as a blowfly or a maggot, as punishment for greed, and move on.

It’s not like he can change anything. His boss’ orders are his boss’ orders.

He scrubs both hands over his face, and laughs loud and hard at himself. Then he goes back in, to hang up his greatcoat and suit properly, and change into more comfortable clothes. 

He goes maybe seven steps before he starts snickering again, this time for real. 

That he had walked in, and the goblin was on the sofa with a thick blanket drawn all the way up to its chin, surrounded by a field of throw pillows with a giant bowl of what looked like snack food cradled to its chest clutched by a long jumper-clad arm. 

That it was staring at the television screen with a glazed look, shovelling food into its mouth, before it noticed Yunho had mistakenly worn shoes to the house and roused itself enough to screech about it. 

That it just kept eating, and eating, and eating, even when it thought it was witty and called _ him _ “zombie”. 

He squats down and howls with laughter into his fist, his brain flooded with images of how the goblin had looked, a blanket burrito with its mouth slightly open in confusion and cheeks bulging with meat and god knows what else. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETERNAL PEACE BABY ETERNAL BLAZE  
AIN'T NOBODY AIN'T NOBODY AIN'T NOBODY BUTCHU  
YOU'RE MY ONLY YOU'RE MY ONLY YOU'RE MY ONLY
> 
> Hot Sauce MV  
https://youtu.be/v0hq5rJJqJI  
#toho15th #XV #東方神起
> 
> x
> 
> Comments are love.


	4. iv. the haunting in seoul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hot Sauce MV  
https://youtu.be/v0hq5rJJqJI  
#toho15th #XV #東方神起

It’s another one of his girls in his district today. This one is now in her twenties, but Yunho remembers her from when she was a child. 

She liked to sit in the swings and swing herself up high, higher than most adults were comfortable with. 

He finds her at the playground now, the one he likes to go at times, when a soul’s passing hits him particularly hard and he needs to be reminded there is still innocence in the world.

She's seated at the lip of a slide.

Yunho’s voice hitches a little when he hails her. He’s reading her name from the embossed name card he’s got in his hand. 

She turns even before he says her name a second time, and smiles at him. “Oh, ajusshi. I wondered when I will see you again.”

It’s the second time in months a soul talks about encountering him before. 

Yunho jolts a little, and meets her gaze. 

It’s very bright and her stare is very direct. Yunho coughs, and recalls himself. He recites her time of death, and reason of death per his duty. He ends with a controlled, “that is you, without mistake. Yes?”

“Yes,” she confirms, smiling wider at him. She’s very pale, and her hair is long and swept back from her face.

He musters a smile at her. “Follow me.”

She does, walking behind him. Yunho’s got his fedora on, but he lowers the brim out of habit anyway, as they trudge along Seoul’s busy pavements, and the sea of humanity part around him and his charge instinctively even though they can’t see either of them.

It’s a Monday, and it looks overcast. It hasn’t rained yet, but the late autumn’s chill is strong and pervasive, even though Yunho’s got a suit and his greatcoat on. The cold breeze feels like heaven on his cheeks.

He looks back, to see her but a step behind him. 

They round an intersection, and come to the blank expanse of stone wall that guards the otherworldly entrance to Yunho’s tea parlour. Yunho takes a step off to the side, and gestures to his hitherto silent shadow. “After you.”

“Thank you!” She bows to him, and hesitates a little, before stepping forward. 

It still looks like a blank wall, so she raises a hand to touch the cold stone, gasping in delight when her fingers grasp instead a doorknob in the shape of a stylised dragon’s head. “Cool!” 

She steps in. He follows after her, and sheds his greatcoat and fedora to hang at the iron coat stand he’s got in the corner. When he turns, she’s tucking her hair behind her ears, and clasping her hands before her girlishly. 

He lifts a hand to his tea table. “Please sit.”

Smiling, she does. 

Normally he takes this time to calm the soul, or to let the soul speak to release its anger, and rail at its unhappy fate on the other side of the veil. 

There’s no need with this girl. She’s just sitting there, smiling at him. Her face is peaceful. There is no anger, nor pain.

Yunho feels a stinging start at the tip of his nose and the back of his throat. He smiles back at her, regardless. “Wait for me for a little while. I’ll put the kettle on, and pick your tea cup.” 

“Okay,” she agrees, her bright gaze darting around his parlour, and wandering over the bamboo door chimes, the pine-and-oak decor he’s amassed for it over the centuries. 

Yunho nods, and turns on his heel. 

He doesn’t have to ponder. For certain souls, he knows his choice of teacups for them sometimes at first sight, or even before.

This girl is one of them. 

He picks it up, with its accompanying saucer, and turns back to the front parlour. She gifts him with another smile, and cranes her neck curiously at the backroom he’s just exited. “Where does that lead to, ajusshi?” 

He only smiles at her, and doesn’t answer. She nods to herself. “Ah, okay. So we’re not supposed to know what’s behind there.” 

“Some answers are not for idle curiosity,” Yunho agrees, and checks the kettle. The water hasn’t yet boiled, so he settles for portioning the required amount of tea leaves into the little dish he has for this specific purpose. 

The purple clay teapot he usually uses sit next to it, waiting. He gives its lid and insides a customary wipe. 

Her gaze follows his movements. “Is that a dragon, or a tiger? I keep looking at it, and I can’t quite decide.” 

“This?” He drifts a finger over the spout, where she’s looking at. Turns the teapot towards her, so she can see more clearly. “This is the mouth of an Asian dragon.” 

“Ah!” She brightens. “I thought so. It looks a little too long to be the mouth of a tiger, but I wasn’t sure.” 

Yunho picks up his polishing rag again, and runs it around the clean teacup. His voice is very soft. “Are you happy, dear girl?”

“Oh, yes,” she assures him. “The pain stopped, once it happened for real. It was over quickly.” 

She pauses a little, and her smile slips away, for a little woebegone frown. “It’s only. I feel sorry for my family. I know they will try to understand… I looked in on them. My brother is very sad.” 

Yunho doesn’t offer her a response, because nothing he says will be enough. Some things, not even he has the answers to. He’s only a reaper. 

They sit in companionable silence for a while, and then the kettle whistles, a cheerful chirping burble. 

She watches his movements with a quick, darting gaze, alive with curiosity. “So the tea is made like this. In the legends, they only ever say it’s presented in a bowl. And it’s given by an old lady!”

“Will you prefer me to be an old lady?” Yunho asks, pouring hot water over the empty tea pot with a flick of his hands, and drains it. Then he puts the tea leaves in the strainer. 

She laughs, cupping a hand over her mouth reflexively. Her eyes are little twin moons. “Oh no, no. Ajusshi is fine like this. We used to say you are the most most handsomest in the neighbourhood. The ones who can see you, anyway.”

He pauses in bringing the kettle over, and then continues. “And here I thought I was being discreet.”

“Ajusshi liked to watch us best when we played, and laugh.” She twinkles at him. “These days, people call that stalker behaviour. It’s not something good.”

“I am a creature of the dark,” Yunho points out, and she erupts in peals of laughter, rocking back and forth. 

She subsides as he pours the hot water, and then closes the lid to the teapot for steeping. “Do you think my family will be okay, ajusshi?”

Yunho doesn’t have an answer to this, too. 

“Humans are resilient. Mortals may yet surprise you,” he says honestly.

She cups her chin with a hand, and props an elbow on the smooth oak of his table. She’s still gazing at him. “Am I weak then, for choosing this?” 

“Only you can say if you are weak, or strong. It is not for me to pass judgement,” Yunho tells her gently, steepling his fingers together. He looks at the teapot, and stretches out a finger to test it. Not quite done yet. 

She hums, and changes the topic to, or perhaps not quite, “I’m surprised I get to have the tea.”

Startled, Yunho looks at her. 

“Because I chose this,” she clarifies. “I thought this means I will be punished.” 

“That pain was never meant for you,” Yunho says. He pours the tea. “No one deserves such pain. Why should the tea not be offered, when you were already punished?”

Her eyes redden at that. Nevertheless, she gifts him with a wobbly smile, that steadies. “Thank you, ajusshi.”

“There is no need to thank me for the truth,” Yunho states, and shifts the teacup in its saucer closer to her. Unlike most souls, she reaches for it without hesitation.

“Does it hurt, ajusshi?” She asks him, blowing at the tendrils of steam coming off the liquid.

Yunho blinks at her. “Does what hurt, dear girl?”

“You.” She cocks her head at him. “Having to send us off like this everyday. But you’re still here. When do you get your own sendoff?”

There is a sharp pang in his dead heart, and somewhere there is a whisper that says, _ wait, the time is not yet right. _

To her, Yunho only says, “this is my job.”

She nods, and drinks the tea.

Then she stands, bowing until her back is ruler-straight and perpendicular to the lacquered wood of his floor. Yunho mirrors her.

When she straightens, it is to give him a big grin, one that shows off all her teeth and crinkles her eyes into little crescent shapes. “Thank you for your hard work, ajusshi.”

No one’s ever said that to him before. They thank him for his kindness, or his comfort, or his silence, or his words. No one’s ever thank him for his hard work before. 

Yunho nods at her, and says gruffly, “I think you know where to go, dear girl.”

She nods back, and turns to put a hand at the door that materialises to her left. She doesn’t look back.

Yunho stands there for a long, long time, until the teapot cools completely. Then he shakes his head, and does the habitual rinsing ceremony for the tea implements, and packs the strainer and dish and teapot away till tomorrow. He tidies his tea table, and wipes it down. 

He can’t avoid it any longer. 

Yunho stands, for once feeling every year of his six hundred and some years.

Grasping the teacup, he rubs a thumb over the stylised white pear blossoms curving around the sides. Taps gently once, twice at the little white dots of drifting snowflakes, and heaves a long sigh.

“Silly,” Yunho tells himself. 

Then he forces his legs to move, and to place her back in the backroom, where the rest of the last teacups sit. 

\--

He heads home after that, because there are no more embossed name cards for the day, and the only email in his inbox is from his senior Heechul, who reminds him to RSVP for the annual reaper seminar coming up after next year’s Spring Equinox. HR always starts the reminders too early. 

Yunho thinks about heading to the cafe, or a bookstore he’s found recently, tucked next to a jjigae shop run by a nice neighbourhood auntie near the playground the girl was talking about. 

Then he looks at the darkening sky, and shakes his head. Walking to a convenient alley, he vanishes in a puff of black smoke.

Because Yunho actually likes walking, he reappears at the foot of a hill near where he calls home now, and meanders upwards, gazing at the trees. Most of them are bare, or nearly so. 

There’s a rumble of far-off thunder, but the skies don’t empty, even after he steps into his foyer and sheds his shoes.

He turns to walk off, and pauses. 

Turning back, he looks at the neat rows of shoes lined up, like rows of soldiers turned out for inspection. Then he looks at his own pair, shiny and black and chucked haphazardly diagonal to each other.

Yunho reaches out with a foot, and prods them till they line up parallel to each other. There’s a flash of lighting outside the front door, but the sun is still out, if wan.

Just as well. He forgot his umbrella today. For all Yunho likes the cold, he is not a fan of being wet. 

He’s made good time, but the house seems to be empty for once. 

Exiting the living room, Yunho peers absentmindedly into the kitchen, and the laundry room, before he decides to head up. Then he stops short. 

The antique-looking doors to the creature’s library is open, and it doesn’t seem to be around, and because Minseok had warned him about it, and because Yunho only had a peek at the entrance when he did the realtor tour, and also because one thing Yunho’s senior reapers have clucked at him before is his curiosity. 

Yunho goes in.

It’s a beautiful room, large and well-appointed, and covered almost entirely in lovely floor-to-ceiling French windows on the side that is the front of the house, facing the driveway. The floors are dappled faintly by scant autumnal sunlight. The bookshelves sit in the middle of the room, forming passages, as well as line the edge of the far side of the room.

Yunho pauses, and inches back two steps. He looks around. The creature really doesn’t seem to be at home. 

He steps forward again, and again. 

A section off the side is much dimmer, and Yunho pivots to that. He goes closer, and realises this section is arranged almost like a museum display. 

Some of the texts are laid out here in clear exhibition, and they’re pretty yellowed. Some are in boxed up glass cases.

Sunlight’s not good for old books. Yunho looks at the faint patches of sunlight dancing at the edges of the room, and back at that section, built into a slight depression in the floor. It’s got a couple of steps leading down it, and Yunho takes those. 

He heads down it, and turns, only to be confronted by a large tapestry running nearly the full length of the walls that make up the large alcove. 

Yunho drifts closer. 

He was mistaken. Rather than an embroidered tapestry, it’s a very long, horizontal silk painting, and it’s very old, framed. 

Strangely, there’s no glass encasing it. 

The colours of the painting are still vibrant. It depicts a man in the foreground on the left and closest to where Yunho is standing, an archer with a bow drawn back and cocked. There’s a shining sun in the right side of the tapestry, high up and still red, and scores of black ravens, and the impressions of a mountainous landscape. 

There’s an old legend in North Asia, one of the more primitive creation myths that his boss had approved concepts for, and it tickles at Yunho’s brain as he counts the ravens. One, two, four, six, eight, ni-

“_What the fuck are you doing!_” Is the enraged shout behind him. 

Yunho turns. 

The goblin stands at the top of the steps. His face is alit with a terrible fury and he’s wreathed by blue fire and he’s got a long sword gripped in one hand. 

Right. Yunho shouldn’t be here. He remembers what Minseok had said. 

Usually in their verbal sparring, the creature just looks in turns bored and amused and irritated. 

This, Yunho realises with something that feels a little like guilt, this is how the goblin looks like when he’s truly angry. 

Yunho blinks, and looks at Changmin again. Since when did he start thinking of Chang- the _goblin_ as a he? 

He opens his mouth, but the goblin’s not finished. 

‘Don’t you fucking touch the only good thing I have left on this fucking accursed earth.” He snarls, violence writ on every inch of his person. His eyes are wide and his gaze is murderous and he's got all of his teeth on display. He's also advancing towards Yunho with long, jerky strides. It's the fastest Yunho's ever seen him move. “Someone worth ten thousand of you gave that to me. Touch it and I’ll peel the miserable skin from your undead flesh strip by strip.”

“Jeez, calm down,” Yunho tries; but guilt makes his rejoinder feeble. He backs away and to the side in time for Changmin to shove past him, sword aloft.

Yunho ducks a swing from that sword, and ducks again. The creature really means to run him through. Yunho back-pedals more.

The goblin growls, and lunges, forcing him out past the army of French windows and back out until he can slam the doors shut in Yunho’s face.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #XV in Tokyo was fun: https://twitter.com/WennyTee/status/1197372443200909312?s=20
> 
> I wrestled v. long with the idea of this chapter in Oct. both the premise and well.  
sigh.
> 
> Please reach out when you hurt. Even if all the voices in your head tells you no one will care. You have to help yourself that very first step.
> 
> -
> 
> Comments are love.


	5. v. it follows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LAST CHAPTER-  
everyone: wait what tapestry  
me: hahahha  
mouldsee: wait does anyone else realise it yet  
me: HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
> 
> Also, I swear this fic is sweet.  
It's going to be EVEN SWEETER THAN COCONUTS AU AND THAT IS DRIVING ME MAD
> 
> DO YOU KNOW-  
THIS WHOLE DAMN THING IS JUST SO I CAN WRITE <s>Japan flat canon shenanigans</s> HOUSEMATES AU
> 
> this chapter is for mouldsee bc she did a grocery run while i trotted along with and ranted out loud about how RL!shim changmin SAYS things to keep his hyung at arm's length but his actions are a (platonic) love letter

There’s a prolonged period of frostiness with the reaper, where they merely glance at each other perfunctorily when bumping into each other in the hallways, which isn’t too often. 

Once or twice the creature opens his mouth, but Changmin just opens the nearest convenient door and flee through the doorway to other spaces, like his favourite bookshop, or wherever. The reaper can’t follow him through his doorway travel. No one can. 

After a few attempts, the reaper takes to keeping his mouth closed and his gaze politely averted to Changmin’s philtrum, when they pass each other in the house. 

Changmin realises belatedly that it’s the dead thing’s roundabout way of apologising for intruding on what is blatantly off-limits. 

Whatever. He holds onto his rage, wraps it around him like familiar armour, for a couple more weeks. 

One day when he’s in his study polishing the little jade swallow figurines he has sitting on his desk, he stops and realises that all he feels is a mild irritation. 

Long ago, Changmin used to have an infinite capacity for fury and an extremely good memory for remembering slights. 

Time and the many mortals passing in his long, long life has taught him the futility of that. 

Changmin takes a deep breath, and pats the swallows with a finger. They fit together in his palm, the curves of the jade worn into near-smoothness. 

These too are a testament of time. The swallows haven’t had their eyes and beaks for a while.

He exhales, and sets them down gently. They clink against each other.

Then he heads to his wardrobe for a thick winter coat. Minseok did tell him over dinner the other evening that the new architecture book he has been anticipating, will go on sale today.

\--

There’s a stereotype floating through the ages that goblins are homebodies. 

Changmin doesn’t think there’s nearly enough of them bumming around for it to turn into true legend. He’s certainly never met another goblin face-to-face; only heard tell of them from Minseok’s grandfather’s grandfathers. But it’s a whisper that follows him throughout the years.

Changmin also doesn’t think he’s particularly fond of nesting, although Minseok begs to differ.

“You leave your house once a week,” Minseok rolls his eyes.

“I’m out of my house now,” Changmin points out.

They’re in the open, because Changmin wants to head to his favourite bookshop, and Minseok had rang him to see what he was up to. Ringing turned into tagging along instead, so Changmin has to make his way with Minseok in tow via walking, rather than through a couple of convenient doorways.

The late autumnal chill is heavy, turning the air crisp and cold. Winter is coming. Changmin shudders, and withdraws even further into the thick pashima wool of his collar. He should have brought a scarf.

“Only because of a book,” Minseok sniffs, and yelps with laughter when Changmin swings an arm at him. “Uncle, Uncle!”

“Insolent child,” Changmin says, but they both can hear the fondness leaking out in his voice. 

“Buy me food after this. I’m poor,” Minseok wheedles. Changmin ignores him in favour of pushing open the door to the bookshop.

Door chimes tinkle a welcome. 

“You’re fourth generation _chaebol_ to one of the biggest entertainment companies in South Korea,” Changmin refutes, while scanning at the gigantic New Arrivals shelf. General fiction, romance, horror, thriller, New York Times bestseller. 

“Who is under a curfew and also has his allowance frozen thanks to you!” There is a pout practically tangible in Minseok’s voice, but Changmin tunes him out in favour of looking through the genres. Celebrity recommended, general non-fiction, self-help. 

Ah! Architecture. He’s in luck. There’s still a copy left.

He can feel himself grinning in anticipation, and reaches for the plastic wrapped hardback, only to be interrupted by a white hand doing the same thing.

He looks to the side, ready to fight mortals, and meets the eye of the dead thing that is currently his unwanted tenant.

“Oh,” Yunho says.

Beside him, Minseok fairly vibrates with pleased recognition. “Nice Neighbourhood Brother! I haven’t seen you in a month. How are you?”

“Very well, thank you, and you?” The creature says politely enough, without looking away from Changmin. “Hello. I presume you want the book?” 

Changmin drops his hand, and steps back a step.

The dead thing is gazing at him, head cocked. 

Something about the tilt of his head niggles at Changmin’s brain. He shakes it away. 

“Of course I want it. Why else would I be reaching out for it?” Changmin’s mouth says rudely of its own volition. 

“Uncle!” Minseok hisses in horror. He bows sloppily at the reaper. “Sorry! It’s cold today, and Uncle’s just cranky. He doesn’t like the cold. Nor the heat. Fairly wilts in summers.” 

Changmin looks at the book. He looks at the reaper. At Yunho. Then he shrugs. 

“It’s fine,” he says carelessly. The reaper- _ Yunho _ is dressed in another black suit today, paired with shiny polished black oxfords.

His hat is nowhere to be seen, though. There’s a blobby white thing pinned to his lapel as a brooch. 

Changmin’s too far away and it’s too tiny for him to see what shape it is in. Probably a reaper’s salary can’t afford said reaper many nice things, if he has to save to rent a suite of rooms from Changmin. 

He recognises the meanness of his thoughts, and some crazy impulse -to do a good deed a day perhaps- spurs him to say, “you can have it. I’ll just order a copy online. Maybe a paperback. Those are more environmentally-friendly.”

Minseok gapes at him. “Uncle! Are you ill?”

Yunho gazes at him steadily. “No, no. You can have it.”

Changmin opens his mouth, but before he can say anything else, Yunho continues. “If you don’t mind me borrowing it from you for a read, when you’re done with it?”

Minseok gasps, an audible inhale of breath. “Er, Uncle doesn’t share very well…”

“Sure,” Changmin's mouth says. Changmin's not sure his brain has anything to do with it. “You can have it for a loan. For a very short while.”

\--

The atmosphere in the house is markedly more cordial after that. Although it’s a tenuous peace of sorts, and they still don’t go out of their way to interact with each other. 

At least he doesn’t feel daggers being stared into his back whenever he passes in the goblin’s line of sight, Yunho muses.

Fifty years isn’t a long time, not to both their kinds, but it’s still a marked duration enough to make being constantly glared at an uncomfortable sensation. 

Changmin still wrinkles his nose at Yunho’s vegetables and fruits, although he doesn’t couple that with hissing commentary about the depravity of reaper proclivities. Not after their coincidental meet-up at the bookshop.

Yunho was there because he felt like light reading, and it is a store within walking distance from his favourite playground. 

It is, he learns that day from Minseok’s incessant chatter, Changmin’s preferred haunt outside of his house.

Sometimes in the evening, when they’re partaking their separate dinners on the same long dining table after Yunho comes back from work, he still offers pointed remarks about how unnatural it is for humans to subsist on a non-meat diet. 

“I’m not human,” Yunho says. “Not anymore. Neither are you.”

“You’re a dead human,” Changmin points out, slicing sharply through his tenderloin. Pink juices ooze out. 

Yunho gazes at the spectacle on Changmin’s plate in disgusted awe. “That looks like the shells in the five-car pileup on the highway I had to attend to this morning. The heads were all squished together and there was brain matter on the gravel.”

“Wow, thanks for the mental image,” Changmin says sharply, cutlery clattering against fine bone china.

Yunho laughs.

\--

Living together with another being full-time is… odd. 

Changmin doesn't quite know how to describe it. 

Long ago, when he was young and fresh and beautiful, he owned a large retinue of staff, but even then it wasn't quite living together with them. He had his own space and his own grounds and he could basically do whatever the fuck he wanted. 

In the years after, when Changmin had tried to die a man and instead rose a goblin, he fled humanity and wandered, wending through what was Asia and then Europe, before they were known by such names. He even spent six decades in Africa, staring in fascination at the large animals roaming the savannahs. He only left because he was being mistaken as food too often and the poor wildlife were so confused when they realise he isn't quite edible. 

Changmin spent too many centuries alone, because he learns too quickly that mortals are not very good company when they die so quickly. 

Somehow he still picks up stragglers, and in the thirteenth century he collected an overly enthusiastic mortal who swore his loyalty and his soul to Changmin when Changmin rescued him from starvation with a few bars of gold (of which there was initial ambivalence) and a sack of grain (which hailed marked enthusiasm). 

In a sudden and acute fit of altruism, Changmin accepted the loyalty but gave back the soul.

That had been Minseok's great-grandfather many times over, who fashioned 'gold' into their family name in tribute to Changmin.

But even they had kept their distance, choosing to care and look after his necessities while still ensuring he had his privacy. There was nothing like… this. 

"This" is the bizarre spectacle Changmin has just found himself walking in on. 

The reaper is on the floor, on his back against a colourful pink mat with his face tilted up to the ceiling and he's got his legs lifting up and soft-looking grey tracksuits bottoms on and nothing else. 

Changmin doesn't know where to look.

There's a shift of movement even with the reaper's legs still and pointing towards the ceiling, and Changmin realises with an abrupt billowing of fog that the movement had happened in Yunho's pelvic region and wow, if one wishes to exercise, one should make sure one has compression tights on because gravity and whatnot?

It would only be polite for one's housemate to not be confronted by swinging or shifting or hanging _ anything _ so early in the morning.

"What are you doing?" sounds, and Changmin realises it hasn't come from him, but from the reaper instead. Yunho's somehow bringing his legs down and they're now a steady line over his head. 

"What am I- I should be asking _ you _ what _ you _ are doing!" He gestures at the foot of the stairs, where Yunho has decided to commence twisting himself into a man-sized pretzel. "You're a road hazard!"

"No roads here," Yunho points out, eyes closed and face peaceful and feet somehow placed behind his own head. His torso is very naked. "Can you stop it with the fogging, please? It's very distracting."

Eyes fixed on the tiny tight curve of Yunho's arse helpfully outlined by the tight stretch of grey cotton, Changmin nearly hears 'fogging' as 'flogging'. 

He chokes on air, and then realises his mistake and hurriedly waves the fog away. It slinks outdoors with great reluctance. 

It earns him a rare grin from Yunho on the mat, an actual smile and not the usual upturned red lips and dead doll eyes. "Thanks."

Not that Changmin sees it. He's too busy looking away. 

"I," Changmin says, eyes trained fiercely on the paintings on the wall. The still-lifes wither under his gaze. "What _are_ you doing?" 

"Exercise is good for the body, and yoga is good for the mind." Yunho breathes, and Changmin realises with horror that he's arching his back up slightly, and he's still not wearing a shirt and there are things flexing and grey cotton is probably a shit plebeian textile because it shows everything and fuck knows Changmin's never worn it in his too long life and he never will.

He takes a deep breath, and steps over the tangle of limbs that is Yunho. Straightens his blue winter peacoat.

"I'm going out." He tells the dining table. The dining table splinters. Changmin glares at it to behave. It timidly mends itself. 

"Okay," Yunho says. Changmin sneaks a peek. Now Yunho's upright and on his knees, but his bare torso is really very distracting and Changmin didn't realise before that Yunho's really pale and it must be because of all the suit-wearing and souls-ushering because Changmin hasn't heard of a tanned reaper before and wow okay Changmin's clearly losing it but there just seems to be a lot of pale skin but okay. 

Changmin turns without saying another word and marches for the front door. He's always felt that his house is cozy, but now the front door is too far away. 

There's a call behind him, and a "since you're going out, do you think you can get some eggs? We both eat them and I think we're down to the last two."

Changmin doesn't do grocery runs. He's got Minseok for that. Even _ Minseok _ doesn't do grocery runs. When he sees that Changmin's refrigerator has gaps, he just calls one of his many minions ("House elves," Minseok says airily) and whine until the shelves are not-magically filled again. 

"Sure, I'll get two dozen," Changmin tells the door handles, and flees the house at a pleased murmur from Yunho. 

\--

Winter wanders into Seoul, but Changmin throws such a spectacular tantrum that she backs off and holds onto the snow. 

Yunho accidentally witnessed it, and it was a bit of a revelation as to how fussy goblins can get. There was even a burning lake and everything. 

It also means bare trees and chilly winds, but the days aren't truly short and there are no blizzards.

Yunho's not grateful per se, but the weather is really lovely like this. Because the temperatures aren't sub-zero yet, the children in his district are still out and about his favourite playground and swinging on monkey bars and gathering at the slides. 

He's there now, and gazing in soft fascination at a pair of siblings who are squabbling about who gets to clamber up the slide the wrong way round first. The sister's got a determined hand pulling at the back of her brother's tee and another little hand tangled in his hair. 

The brother is howling. 

Yunho can't help the fond smile that creeps across his face, even as he raises a hand to fit his fedora more tightly to his head. There's a breath at his ear. "I can't believe you haven't been arrested for being a paedophile yet."

He turns. 

It's Changmin, an eyebrow raised at him with the most ridiculous scarf wrapped around his face and neck. He's in a thick black winter Chesterfield coat, zipped and coupled with a woolly white turtleneck, black winter trousers and boots. 

Yunho feels too warm just looking at him. "What are you doing here?" 

"Oh, I was running errands, and walked past," Changmin waves a careless hand. He pokes at Yunho's left cuff. "Aren't you cold?" 

"My body really likes the cold. One of the job's benefits," but Changmin's got a disbelieving sneer on his face and he's unwinding the scarf with a grumpy mutter. 

A second later, Yunho's vision is obscured by a heap that drops about his head and turns his world into cloistered darkness.

It smells faintly and disconcertingly like peach blossoms.

Sputtering, he fights his way out of the cashmere. "I'm not cold?"

Changmin's sneer just widens. "Reapers are corpses, aren't they? What happens when you freeze a corpse? Do you just fall over?"

"You really are very rude," Yunho tells him wonderingly, but somehow they're walking and he's being harangued for finishing the last of the milk and having the cheek to leave the empty carton without replenishing it. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are love. x


	6. vi. drag me to hell

It’s Friday. Yunho’s in the mood for a milkshake, so after sending off a couple from his tea parlour, he heads out, buoyed by the rare clear skies. 

Autumn is fast sliding into winter despite Changmin's sulk, but the sun is out and about for once. 

He lifts his face to the light, basking in the warmth of sunshine, made perfectly lovely by the cold breeze flitting about, and walks on foot to his favourite cafe.

It's quite empty today, something that makes Yunho happy. There's dime-a-dozen of such similar cafes along this tree-lined street, large floor-to-ceiling windows opening out for a great view of the ginkgo trees. That invites in lovely natural light and also scores of hipster mortal children with their AirPods and MacBooks. 

But this particular cafe makes a mean hot chocolate and a brilliant strawberry milkshake. It makes Yunho gravitate to it, particularly when he's with his senior reapers and has to drink Americanos, and the baristas just smile at his order and make that for him, but with a sneaky dash of chocolate powder and a pour of syrup. 

He waves a hello at the barista manning the counter. It's the university girl who's on duty today; the one that sneaks him extra marshmallows on his hot chocolate to go.

Scanning the blackboard for the daily specials, he's not even surprised when her smile freezes and he feels a dark presence at his back.

"Fancy meeting you here," is said lowly against the back of his neck, and Yunho turns, eyebrows raised very high. 

Changmin is looking more smugly pleased with himself than usual. He's bundled up in too many layers again.

"Are you stalking me?" Yunho asks him mildly. "Is it to make sure that I'm not assaulting any children? We should stop meeting like this."

There's a choking sound behind the counter. Changmin ignores all that, and looks around. 

“So what do you eat here,” he makes a very obvious face at the plant wall in the corner, decorated with bright neon candy cane letter lights in cursive.

‘Happiness is a cup of coffee’, they exclaim. “Are those on the menu?”

“That’s the decoration, you uncultured creature,” Yunho smiles pleasantly. He widens it when the goblin glares at him. Turning his gaze back to the blackboard menu before him, Yunho muses, “milkshakes and chocolate. The Americano is good too.” 

“Americano?” The goblin asks, nose wrinkled.

Yunho takes pity on such a poor sheltered creature. “You must not get out very much. Here, I’ll treat you to one. I have enough stamps on my member card to get a one-for-one anyway.”

“I think you just spoke Korean, but I didn’t understand it at all,” Changmin marvels. “Why do you have stamps for beverages? Are they food stamps? Are you poor from renting my house?”

The words are sharp, but there’s a teasing slant to the grin Changmin has on his face. 

Yunho shrugs him off. “One strawberry milkshake, large, no whipped cream. One large Americano,” he tells the barista, and is prompted smilingly, “for here or to go?”

He glances to the side again, where the goblin has drifted, and is now poking at the succulents potted amidst the sugar and cinnamon. “To go.” 

“All right, that’ll be twelve thousand won,” she says cheerily, and he hands both his credit card and member’s card over. “Oh! You have enough points for a free one-for-one! Should I…?”

“Go ahead,” Yunho says, and goes to rescue the succulents from Changmin.

The goblin looks up from the sugar to Yunho in genuine bafflement. “Why do the mortals store sugar amongst cacti now? Have they gone mad?”

“Clearly Minseok hasn’t introduced you to the concept of hipsters,” Yunho says, and pinches at Changmin's coat sleeve so he can drag him over to the waiting area.

The goblin goes willingly enough, still bitching about how vases are meant for real flowers, not fake dried ones, but Yunho takes pity on him and goes, “are you looking for me?”

That shuts him up.

Yunho just raises his eyebrows. 

After a long pause punctuated with intense staring at the flower bough booth seats, Changmin pulls a bud off of the potpourri decorating the counter, and mumbles, “Dry cleaners. Suit.”

“Beg pardon?” Yunho’s eyebrows go higher. 

Changmin shuffles his feet, and glares at the vicinity of the miniature trees lining the waiting counter. They wither, until Yunho jabs him in the side in pointed reminder and Changmin blinks. Then he remembers himself, and revives them before the mortals can sense something amiss. “Your dry cleaners. I need a name. For. A suit. Why do they put trees indoors? How do they get sunlight like this?”

“The windows are large enough. Otherwise, there are special LED lamps designed to induce plant growth,” Yunho says absentmindedly. 

Changmin looks at him like he's gone soft in the head. "And you know this, how?" 

Yunho has had a lot of hobbies. And also an incurable love for the home shopping network channel, which he watches on Changmin's television long after Changmin retires for the night. He's made sure Changmin doesn't know this. 

He changes the subject, leaning against the counter. "Why would you need the name of my dry cleaners? Don't you have Kim Minseok and a legion doing your bidding for such pesky chores?"

There's silence. Changmin abruptly deflates. 

"Minseok is a mess," he mutters at the recyclable straws shoved into a holder at the counter. They crumple into themselves in commiseration. Changmin sighs, and wills them upright again. "His grandfather is poorly. We just had a hospital scare, and he's -Minseok I mean- flopping around being generally useless and I need to drag him to the hospital to visit his grandfather, but for that I need a freshly pressed suit and-"

"One large Americano and one large strawberry milkshake, to go!" Interrupts the smiling barista, who places both cups at Yunho's elbow. "Do you need syrup bubble packs to go or-"

"Go away," Changmin tells her. She goes away.

Changmin flattens his lips to a thin line, and straightens. "Yes. So. I need to get a suit cleaned and my usual avenues are not open to me. Hence."

Yunho blinks and says, "I don't think my dry cleaners are suitable for you." 

He brings his fedora out from where it was tucked under his arm, and shows its clothing label to Changmin. "Made under the Nine Springs," it proclaims in bold print. 

"Oh," Changmin says, and then frowns ferociously at Yunho. "I knew 'going to the dry cleaners' was a euphemism for something else, I knew it! You just keep going on and on about it-"

"I may know a place," Yunho muses, and prods Changmin over to the door of the cafe. "Go through and get the suit you want. I'll see you at home."

\--

"A place" that Yunho knows turns out to be a little laundry shop belonging to the family of one of his deceased spirits, and Changmin stares in unwilling fascination as Yunho and the soul somehow manage it such that the living owner, son of the dead man with chin propped on his neck and hovering behind him, agree to have Changmin's grey three-piece ready and pressed before the sun goes down.

"You're actually friends with them," he blurts out at Yunho's back, after they're waved off by the dead soul who shouts, "thanks again for the extension and the business, reaper! I'll come by your tea parlour in three days!"

He's stopped in the middle of the pavement and Yunho's noticed. 

The reaper pauses in his steps, and turns to Changmin. "It's a lonely existence otherwise."

"Is it?" Changmin thinks of his own long lonely existence, flitting in the shadows about mortals, trying to eke out year after year in his never ending un-life. And before that, when Changmin was just a man but even then there was more loneliness than warranted, except there was also-

Changmin's mind shies away from that train of thought, so forcibly that the street lamps short themselves out in a staggered shower of sparks. 

Yunho's frowning at him. Changmin mends them with a muttered "sorry". 

"Are you okay?" Yunho takes a step closer. "Was it something I said-" 

"I'll see you at home," Changmin says quickly and dissolves in a flash of blue fire, uncaring if there are mortals on the street. 

\--

Minseok's grandfather recovers, and both Minseok and Changmin do, too.

But Changmin looks at those liver-spotted hands and wrinkled skin where before there was a small smiling little boy holding his hand in war-torn Gyeongseong (or Keijo, depending on who you asked) and he knows it's not long, now. 

They all know it, and Minseok hangs around Changmin's house more, whining about the increased amount of rules and regulations he's being placed under, and keeping absolutely mum about anything else.

Today he's complaining about how he has been ordered to score only As. 

"When you two packed me off and back to school, I went," he's whinging, seated and hugging the back frame of Changmin's dining chair. "Get an MBA, Minseok. It's prudent for running the company, Minseok. School is not playtime, Minseok. I've gone, Uncle! I'm at all my classes, my professors and my attendance sheet can attest to that, but _now _ I have to get all As, too?"

Changmin frowns down at the slow-cooker pulled pork he's shredding. "You should. You'll remember and know it whenever you look at your certificate."

Minseok pulls a face at his back. He's unaware that Changmin can see him clear as day from his reflection in the kitchen windows. "School is hard, Uncle! It's not possible to get all As like this! This isn't elementary school! Just going through the programme should be enough!"

Changmin puts down the two forks he’s holding, and turns. 

Minseok pulls back with a chastened mutter, "yeah sure, fine, you know I'll try my best."

"That's all he wants." Changmin says evenly. Nothing in the house stirs. "You know he just wants what's best for you."

"Yeah, yeah," Minseok blusters, eyes downcast. "I just… it's suffocating."

Changmin folds his arms across his chest. 

"...Yeah, yeah, I know, it's only because he loves me and cares about me and there's not much time left…" Minseok's voice gets smaller, and smaller, before he trails off.

Changmin regards him for a moment, two more. Then he straightens. "I'm heading out."

Minseok falls off the chair. It’s antique, and when it lands badly, a leg (the chair, not Minseok's) cracks. "_What_?"

Disapproving frown on his face, Changmin waves a hand. The chair mends, warily because Minseok's still sprawled next to it. "I'm going out. I feel like a walk." 

"Who are you and what have you done to Uncle?" Minseok demands, getting on his feet and growling. "I warn you! I have a black belt in Taekwondo!"

"Who took you to your first lesson?" Changmin snorts, and walks over to rumple at Minseok's hair. He settles for a mild glare, while pulling on a sturdy twill cashmere overcoat. "Don't burn my house down or I'll have your hide. The pulled pork lasagna is your dinner. Feed yourself before you fuck off. I know you have a test in three days."

"I'm not a child, Uncle," Minseok says absent-mindedly, then twigs. "Did you cook for me? Uncle? _Uncle_!"

Changmin just throws a water glass at his head, and makes a beeline for the front door whilst Minseok is still sputtering.

\-- 

Whether by accident or on purpose or accidentally-on-purpose, Changmin’s meanderings taking him past his favourite bookshop, then a familiar-looking playground.

Sniffing at the approaching storm clouds, low and grey and heralding promises of a snow storm, he pulls his overcoat tighter about him and jams his hands into the fur-lined pockets.

Head down against the winds, he walks on.

He’s in the historical district, and the roads are segregated by worn stone walls, rather than modern pavements. He wanders past one, two, three, six, and pauses. 

This must be where most of the reapers work, seeing how it's part of the old city. He's next to one of the stone wall sections, but upon looking in, the reaper currently chatting with an aged couple in what looks like a therapist’s office is young and female.

So Changmin moves on. He goes another two intersections, and. Ah. There’s his unwanted tenant. Serving tea, of all things. Or rather the aftermath of tea. There’s no other presence -that Changmin can sense- inside what looks like a tea shop than Yunho.

Changmin reaches for the door, easily distinguishable, and enters with a muted tinkle of bamboo chimes. Stepping in, he closes the door behind him.

Yunho’s head comes up fast, eyes wide and startled. His mouth is slightly open with surprise. 

His greatcoat is off, and hanging on an oak coat stand in the corner. He’s in his habitual severe black, black suit neat, hatless. The white blobby brooch that Changmin always sees on him is still on his lapel. 

Yunho doesn’t say anything. He’s got a small, sand-colour teapot clutched in his hands. There are two small teacups placed on a little raised wooden box on the table before him, a long solid expanse of pine-and-oak. He looks at the door, and at Changmin. 

He looks at the door again. 

“Hi,” Changmin offers. “You’re still at work?” 

Yunho slowly sets the teapot down, and picks up what looks like a piece of rag instead. “What are you doing here?” The words are slow in coming, hesitant. 

“I was in the neighbourhood,” Changmin says, deliberately careless. He peers around, making a show of craning his neck.

It’s a beautiful tea parlour, fashioned in the older Goryeo style, with a long table positioned as the room’s centre-piece in the middle and generous expanses of spaces all around. Yunho’s standing behind it, and Changmin sees that he’s got a backless wooden stool, beautifully polished, in the same pine-and-oak motif. 

Across the table, nearer to Changmin, sits two other such stools, carved in the same manner.

“How did you find this?” Yunho wants to know. His eyes are still wide. 

“I just walked,” Changmin says honestly. 

He doesn’t mention that it’s not the first time in recent months he’s been walking about, in search of the portions of the old city, rumoured to be the working offices of the reapers, if one knows where to look. 

“What a lovely set,” Changmin says. He's referring to the decor. Somehow it's similar to his tastes, a long, long time ago. 

Changmin's since moved past that for a more international ("Gothic," Minseok will insist. "Unnecessarily dramatic and brooding.") style and palettes. 

But some of your firsts, you never forget.

“Thank you,” Yunho’s still looking cautious. “It’s from Edo. Crafted in the Tang style, however.”

"Right," Changmin jams his hands back into his pockets. But Yunho's tea parlour isn't cold. There's a pleasant warmth curling about the parts of him that are exposed; just his face and ears, really. 

They stare at each other. 

Time unspools, in this little pocket out of time. 

"What are you doing here?" Yunho says again. His voice is very soft. "Are you looking for me, Changmin?"

He puts down the rag. 

Changmin blinks and looks at the ground. Yunho's got very polished floorboards. They are wooden as well, but a darker reddish shape. 

Two shoes come within sight. Black oxfords, immaculate and beautifully polished, so much that they shine.

Changmin looks up. 

Yunho is very close. 

"Hi," Yunho says. He still looks confused, but there is a tiny smile lurking at the edge of those. His nose is barely an inch from Changmin's. 

"Hi," Changmin returns, drawn helplessly into that black-eyed gaze. 

Yunho cocks his head slightly. "Did you need my help with a restless soul?"

"What?" Changmin utters, offended. "No! I can handle those well enough on my own, thank you very much. They're all terrified of me, and with very good reason. No, I said I was in the neighbourhood-"

Yunho kisses him. 

#### \--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL somehow... two kisses in two fics in one week after a dry spell.  
Nearly at the Big Reveal now.......
> 
> Comments are love. x


	7. vii. what lies beneath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this, fulltimeliar.

They part, lips millimetres from each other’s. 

Changmin’s surprised; shock is written all over his face. His pupils are tiny pinpricks of black in an expense of dark gold-brown. 

Yunho gazes into the dark gold, sees how one of Changmin’s eyes is slightly rounder than the other. The waning light glints off the sharp edge of one cheekbone. 

He doesn’t know if he moves or Changmin does. Somehow they sway towards each other.

Those lips are usually flattened into a long thin line in Yunho’s presence. Recently there is a very slight upturn to the corners. 

But they’re now soft, and push against Yunho’s own in mute invitation. 

There’s a tiny exhalation of breath against Yunho’s lower lip. Changmin’s eyes stare into his. His lower lip is sucked at, movement barely there and yet. Yunho can feel his own eyes widen involuntarily. The edge of Changmin’s tongue brushes against his.

Then Yunho remembers. And _ remembers_. 

\--

They show him things through the water, because he asks and asks and asks and he won’t leave. 

Changmin raging, Changmin on his beloved destrier, Changmin in furs, Changmin at the battlefields, Changmin slicing his iron sword through heads necks chest bellies. 

Endless fires, and men and horses screaming. The wails of children. Hell on earth. 

Through it all, Changmin, Changmin, Changmin. Changmin blank. Changmin in pain. Changmin laughing without mirth. Changmin. 

“You need to move on,” the reaper that is in charge of him says, a soft reminder. It’s been long enough that Yunho has learnt his name. It Is Zai-shi. It hasn’t been long enough that Yunho’s learnt the sin that made Zai-shi into a reaper. “You need to drink the tea. It has been more than forty-nine days, Yunho.” 

Titles don’t matter here, not in this reverse kingdom. Not when one is dead. 

Yunho lifts a hand. He doesn’t dip it in the water. They can’t. 

He traces a finger over the reflection of Changmin’s face, worn and angry and bloodied. He looks older than he should. The fact that it’s not his blood just makes Yunho’s dead heart ache. “I can’t. He’s. I can’t leave him.”

“You must.” Zai-shi is brusque but kind. The hand he’s got incessantly on Yunho’s elbow tugs again, but again Yunho resists. “The dead have no influence. The dead have no fetters. The dead are the dead.”

“There must be a way,” Yunho says. For the first time, he shakes Zai-shi’s hand free from his robes lighting-quick, and clasps him by the forearm instead. It’s a pale imitation of how he and Changmin will greet each other, whenever they left each other, but came back. “There must be a way I can help. There must be a way I can stay.”

There is a long, considering pause. The reaper regards him. 

Yunho feels as though the air has thickened, as though Zai-shi is not quite what he says he is, when he hailed Yunho three times, and Yunho turned. There is an odd sense of double vision. Someone -something?- else is looking at him through Zai-shi’s eyes.

What does Yunho know? He’s dead.

“There is one thing you can do,” the reaper says at last. The words are slow, careful. Unbidden, Yunho tightens his grip on the other’s black-clad forearm. “It is not quite for him. Your Changmin is a sinner, one of the greatest we’ve seen. And you have more than earned your right for reincarnation.”

Yunho waits. 

“But,” the reaper continues. His voice is two voices, then three, and one again. “If you wish to forfeit your right thus, there is one thing we can have you do.”

“Does it let me wait for him?” Yunho questions, desperate.

“It lets you wait,” the reaper allows. 

\--

He tries to help the souls the best he can. 

But it’s hard when most of them know they have been sacrificed in Yunho’s name. They accept the tea from him, but not before hurling words of abuse, tears and rage. 

Some of them are silent instead, opting to stare at him for a long, long time, before they drink the tea too slowly. 

Yunho avoids their eyes, all of them.

Meanwhile, Changmin continues killing, and killing, and killing. It’s not even a massacre. If the focus of his rage were slightly wider in scope, it would be called a genocide.

But the amount of souls he sends, burial offerings in Yunho’s name, pale in comparison to his own pain. _ That _ is ugly and jagged and black and all encompassing. 

Somehow it makes Changmin stronger, faster, more lethal. His iron mask is upon his face and his iron sword is in his hand and he has a hundred thousand of his men lined up behind his back, loyal to their dying breaths. Some even beyond that.

Sometimes, Changmin hates him with every fibre of his being. Yunho can taste it in the wind.

Every day Yunho tries to help the souls sacrificed to him. It’s a punishment he now realises is bestowed upon him by the fates. 

Every night Changmin’s pain calls to Yunho, and he looks. It’s a punishment he bestows upon himself. 

Too many or too little mortal years pass, before someone higher up takes undeserved pity on him. 

Zai-shi is sent to him again, and the senior reaper sits in the little tea parlour Yunho has fashioned for himself. 

Because reapers can still appear in the human world, and because they can still feel hunger and tiredness and thus eat and drink, Yunho has ventured back into the streets of his (_not his anymore_) lands, under the veil of his wide-brimmed black hat.

He uses the opportunity to look in on his people, happy that at least his distant cousin who now has the throne isn’t making much of a muck of things. 

He also uses the opportunity to make his way to a discreet little tea house in the more affluent side of the capital that he knows his eunuchs frequent, and purchases two tea blends. 

One, an imported tea blend in tight spirals reminiscent of snails, that his closest attendant used to brew for him whilst he reviewed scrolls from the court. The other is a local mix from his (_not his anymore_) own imperial tea orchards, thin and tightly rolled into a sharp tipped shape.

It’s the latter he serves to Zai-shi now, whilst showing him the canister and balled leaves to assure that it is a mortal tea blend that he is brewing. 

He lets it steep for a little while, then pours.

Zai-shi leans over his tea cup, sniffing. “Oh. The aroma is of flowers.” He sounds surprised. 

“Their trees produce the most beautiful tea roses after spring, of the lightest and most delicate shade of blush you’ll ever see. They bloom like miniature pink suns,” Yunho tells him, pouring a cup for himself as well. 

It’s Changmin’s favourite too, ever since Yunho had his attendants serve this to him during a time Changmin had to wear hemp and black, years ago. 

Zai-shi drinks, and Yunho knows it’s a favour to him that he finishes it, and puts the tea cup aside. “You’ve been busy.” His tone is brisk.

Yunho bows his head. “There are a lot of souls that need help in the district that has been assigned to me.” 

They don’t speak of the reason for the abundance of souls. 

Somehow there’s another teapot, and an empty cup in front of Yunho. He looks at Zai-shi.

The older reaper’s eyes are kind. When he speaks, Yunho gets a sense of vertigo again.

He’s only experienced that once before, when they stood before the water, and Zai-shi offered him a job. 

“It is a luxury to forget. Just for a little while.” The tea cup he pushes closer to Yunho is carved with a lone swallow, its wings spread in flight. The tea he pours into the cup is steaming, and almost clear. 

It’s the same tea Yunho’s offered to so many despairing souls, before doing his best to nudge them to move on. 

“Is it for me to forget him?” Yunho stays very still. “Is that our punishment?” 

Zai-shi’s eyes are steady on his, and still kind. “Do you not punish yourself enough?” 

Yunho looks at him. Yunho looks at the tea. Curves his hands around the little cup. “What is the purpose of this?”

“You brought this upon yourself.” The older reaper smiles, but it doesn’t lessen the sting of his words. They’re the truth. “You were given a chance to move on, but you choose instead to linger. Only you feel you deserve this pain.”

“I can’t leave him like this.” Yunho runs a fingernail over the grooves of the stylized swallow. “I. Whatever he’s doing now. It’s my fault. I can’t leave like this.”

“You have your own convictions,” Zai-shi, or not Zai-shi, says. He gives a light push at the teacup. “Others too, have their own convictions. You won’t be offered this again. Drink.”

Yunho lifts the cup, but keeps his eyes on Zai-shi. “This doesn’t change anything. I will still help.”

“You are a reaper,” Zai-shi says in that voice of many. It’s a promise. “It is your job to help wandering souls.”

Yunho drinks. 

Abruptly, the air pressure in his tea parlour lessens. He blinks, and places the teacup down back in its saucer.

Zai-shi beams at him. “It was a very good visit with you, new reaper Jung Yunho. You have been doing well.” 

Yunho bows in his seat. “Thank you for the praise, senior.” 

Zai-shi stands to leave, uttering casually, “when the time is right, you will go to him with the first snow.” 

Yunho too stands hastily in farewell, blinking in confusion. “Senior?”

Zai-shi smiles again, and draws down the veil to his own wide-brimmed hat. Then he’s gone from Yunho’s tea parlour in a tinkling of bamboo chimes, clanging gently against the oak door. 

Yunho blinks again, and goes to pack away the used teacups. He looks at the stick of incense in the corner. It is the fourth shí, and it’s a new day. Time for Yunho to head out to his job.

\--

In the eighth year of Yunho’s career as a reaper, a tidbit of news rocks the supernatural world. 

The fates have created a goblin, the senior reapers whisper. The rumours are shared over meals eaten together at the common stalls at the intersection of alleys, where they’re served roasted chicken drumsticks and bowls of steaming noodles. 

There was a mortal king who was such a great sinner, that the fates were shaken. And when he met his end, instead of banishing him to hell or having him to reincarnate as a cockroach, the decision is made to turn him into a goblin, such that he can suffer endlessly in the limbo of immortality. 

“I heard it’s because he murdered even children and then had them eaten by wild dogs,” a senior reaper that Yunho knows vaguely, shares between bites of his drumsticks. 

Yunho continues slurping at his noodles. The soup’s very well done today, hot and hearty. He’s almost finished. There is a stack of embossed name cards next to him. He’s got two families to collect. It’s a busy night. 

“No, no,” another senior refutes, gesturing with his chopsticks. “I heard he reared those dogs himself, solely for the taste of human flesh!” 

Yunho’s bowl is clean and sadly devoid of any more noodles. His belly is now nice and full. 

He stands, running a quick arm over his mouth, a smear of grease left hastily on the black cotton. Collecting his stack of name cards, he retrieves his hat, and places it on his head. “I’ve eaten well. This meal is on me! Good evening to you, seniors.”

“Oh, reaper Jung? Off so soon? We’ve just gotten started!” 

Yunho smiles, and bows. “Sorry, seniors. I’ve quite a lot of cases today. I’ll see you around!” 

He sets off, to mutters behind his back, “that rookie is too passionate. He’s hurrying along now, but give him a few hundred years. Mark my words, that passion will burn out by his first century.” 

\--

A millennia and some centuries later, when Yunho thinks of things he shouldn’t, because it’s not yet time, he’s given another cup of tea again discreetly. 

He wonders why there is an ache in his chest, as he gazes at falling cherry blossoms in a field, in Edo. His dead heart beats slightly faster. Eighteen beats per minute. 

The Wakoku people call them _ sakura_. It’s a pretty turn of syllables in their dialect, that they pair to the Chinese character of _ ying_. The spring breeze makes the petals dance in the wind, as they drift down to the stone roads in billowing clouds of white-pink. 

Yunho thinks he must be of the Wakoku, when he was alive. He doesn’t quite remember. 

He’s certainly served here in Edo long enough, and for many mortal lifetimes over. 

A senior reaper that he must have met before comes to him and lets him know his district is no longer Edo. He’s done well, and thus they want him to go west, and across the sea. 

“Is it to Zhongyuan?” Yunho asks, curious.

Not quite. He lands in a vassal-state a rainy summer evening, gazing around him in fascination. The mortals in this region wear clothing not unlike the Wakoku people, now known as the Japanese, and looks similar enough to the northern peoples of the Ming dynasty in the Central Plains, or Zhongyuan, when he headed there last year for the annual reaper seminar. 

But the language they speak is not quite the same, and Yunho strains to understand them. It sounds like a dialect of some sort. 

They are in the middle of what appears to be a shopping district. A couple of shops away, a woman dressed in brightly coloured robes is shouting at a man carrying a bolt of patterned cloth. He’s shouting back. They’ve attracted quite a crowd of onlookers. 

“So my district is now- Joseon?” Yunho clarifies with the senior reaper who is in charge of his orientation. He gets a scoff in return.

“We can’t quite split ourselves, reaper Jung, as you well know,” the senior reaper laughs. He’s already dressed in the clothing of the Joseon people, while Yunho is still dressed in a black and grey kimono. 

His clothes attract more than a few stares, so Yunho reaches out a hand to pull down the veil attached to his hat, and veils himself. The mortals turn away, back to chattering amongst themselves. 

They walk a ways away together. 

The summer heat is wet, and even though they are supernatural creatures, still it affects them. 

The air is still. Yunho runs a finger under the collar of his _haori_, and laughs in embarrassment at the look of commiseration levelled at him. 

His senior is better dressed for the weather, black silks rustling. Somehow the sound is dear, almost familiar. 

“Joseon is the entire peninsula. You’ll run yourself ragged in a week! As it is, your district is Hanyang,” the senior reaper continues, and squints at Yunho. “I’ll show you to a few locations where it’ll be favourable to set up entrances to your tea parlour. You have your things?”

“I will get them on a day good for moving,” Yunho promises, and bows with a smile. 

\-- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just spat out a 7.2k word chapter for Sing! Idol in two days so am a bit muddled in between the fic universes now (that particular monster is now 90k hahahaha what the fuck even)
> 
> I can finally allude officially to the other fic that inspired this fic! But please note that that fic itself stands alone away from this one. You can consider this goblin au as the AU of an AU - if you wish to know the full backstory for this, it'll be helpful to read 與寡常在 (aka warring states!homin au) . But nothing within _that_ fic is impacted by this one (it is not a two way street).
> 
> Zai-shi = 在石 = Jaesuk.  
The mortal tea reaper!Jung brews for Zai-shi is Maojian, and the other blend he bought is Biluochun, for folks interested in that sort of thing.
> 
> If you need a song to read this (and the following chapter to): https://youtu.be/22jvjstvDgM
> 
> 我听闻 你始终一个人 (I've heard you've since been alone)  
斑驳的城门 盘踞着老树根 (Tree roots choke the rusted city gates)  
石板上回荡的是 再等 (The cobblestones reverberate with the lingering wait)
> 
> -
> 
> Comments are love. It helps fuel efforts and whips, at the same time. x


	8. viii. the grudge

A pair of little hands in his. Round eyes. A childish voice telling him “I am on your side”. 

Zithers, large and small. Falling peach blossoms mingled with cherry. An arrow splitting his into two precise halves of a shaft. A leather and iron war mask. Blood. 

Twin smiles, across an expanse of dead men and horses and so much blood. Laughter and wine and silences. Jade swallows. Fighting, and fighting, and so much blood. 

Of being on the battlefield, terrified for his men, angered by the cowardly ambush. Pushing away the stabs of pain when the arrows came. Fighting, and fighting, and fighting, and so much blood, until he was tired. 

Staining the sleeves and arms of Xi-che -god, Heechul, his sunbae-nim- red while grabbing at him, making him promise to remember the words. To remember.

Remember, remember. 

Yunho opens his eyes. 

He’s in the present. He’s in the future. 

It’s been more than two thousand years. 

"_Min_," he breathes against Changmin's lips, wondering.

It’s the first time they’ve done this, across lifetimes. It’s their first kiss. 

Changmin stares at him for a beat, and two. His eyes are opened so wide that Yunho can see the whites all around his pupils, like a spooked horse's.

Then he tears himself away from Yunho with a despairing moan, and flees for the doorway to Yunho’s tea parlour in a flash of blue fire.

Yunho darts after him. He’s got a hand on the doorknob, and he wrenches it open, but it’s too late. 

It opens to a busy Seoul street. It’s starting to snow again. 

Changmin’s gone. 

\--

Changmin’s mind is a whirl. He’s feeling too little and too much at the same time. 

He doesn’t know where he’s going. He’s just charging blindly along the pavements. He just needs to keep moving before Yunho reaches him.

Someone shouts after him, “hey bastard! Watch where you’re going!” He shuts up only when Changmin waves a careless hand behind him, making the hapless pedestrian slip on a perfectly normal and rough patch of pavement cement. 

First and foremost is guilt. 

It’s been more than two millennia but it’s no excuse at all. 

How can he have _ forgotten Yunho’s face_?

He thinks of the pair of jade swallows in his study. At the silk sun painting in his library. The same painting he had caught Yunho staring at one day- he’d shouted at Yunho then, furious that the unwanted tenant was invading his privacy-

But that was why- sometimes when Yunho- when the reaper speaks to him- the certain tilt of his head- sometimes the things he does-

_ He forgot Yunho. _

That itself is enough. He opens more doors, and more doorways. He walks and runs and flees. 

There’s no distance great enough for his shame.

\-- 

Yunho can't find Changmin. 

He's nowhere. He's not at home, he's not in the garden, he's not at any of the places where he usually haunts Yunho -his playground, the bookshop, the cafe. He doesn't come back to Yunho's tea parlour, either. 

Yunho doesn’t know what to do. He asks the spirits he guides, both the ones lingering and fresh, and their friends. Either they’re so afraid of Changmin that they say they don’t know, or they really don’t know. 

“The goblin’s gone to ground,” offers a little boy. 

The boy is fifty-four but he’s also begged Yunho before to let him stay till his twin sister has her grandchildren. Yunho had relented, submitted the necessary paperwork, and kept the tea warm for him. 

Right now not-actually-a-boy wrings his hands and says tentatively, “I think that’s what they do sometimes.”

“They go to ground in their nests, and_ I’m _ his nest,” Yunho snarls, and the spirit shrinks back.

Yunho apologises, then takes his horrid self back home -Changmin’s home, their home- and _ thinks_. 

He grapples for the house phone and calls Minseok’s number, dialled from memory when Minseok had printed his number on the roommate flyer.

It goes to voicemail. 

Yunho takes a deep breath, and another. There’s frost creeping along the floor, and he banishes it with an irritated flick. Then he goes out to the doorstep, and calls for his lingering spirits again. 

They appear, but at the edge of the grounds, and beckon at him.

Yunho forces himself to inhale, and counts to five. Then he strides over. 

“Sorry,” one of them, an old lady dressed in a pretty hanbok says apologetically. “The stink of the goblin is too great over there at the mouth of its den.”

“It’s on you too, actually,” interjects a girl dressed in the uniform of an air stewardess. Nevertheless, they bravely shed their distaste and blink at him, expectant.

“I’m so sorry,” Yunho says. His hands clench into fists, and he uncurls them finger by finger. “I need to find a mortal named Kim Minseok and I can’t reach him by mundane means of communication. Does anyone have an idea…?”

“Oh, me, me!” A schoolgirl in pigtails raises her hands and bounces in glee. “I saw him this morning at the university library!” 

“Show me,” Yunho says.

\--

The spirits lead Yunho to one of Seoul’s many universities. 

This one is well known, and he tracks Minseok down at one of the libraries for texts meant for graduate students. Ostensibly this is where Changmin and Minseok’s grandfather have packed him away to earn an MBA, but Yunho finds him tongue-deep down the throat of some girl at the back of the library instead.

Yunho looms over them at an inappropriately close distance. The girl pushes Minseok away with a tiny shriek of terror.

"Hey wait what why did you- oh fuck _ Nice Neighbourhood Brother you gave me a fright_!" Minseok exclaims. 

Yunho looms closer. "Changmin," he says. 

Minseok's gaze sharpens, suddenly alert. "Wait what. What about Uncle?"

"Where is he," Yunho says. The girl is edging away from him. She looks a little like she can't decide if she should be interested or terrified. 

"At home?" Minseok offers, confused.

"_He's not at home,_" Yunho says. The girl has clearly decided to go for 'terrified' and now huddles behind Minseok with a little scream.

Minseok rakes a hand through his hair and tries to pull his brain cells back up into his head. "Er. Let me think. Have you tried the book-"

"He's not at the bookstore, nor the cafe I go to, nor my tea parlour, nor at the playground where I watch children," Yunho says, ignoring the girl's whispered "is this guy a paedophile? You should call the police on him."

To Minseok, he says again. "Changmin. _ Where is he? _"

"Wait wait wait." Minseok takes a deep breath, blows it out. Shoos the girl away. She goes, but not before blowing him a kiss and mouthing, "call me. Save yourself from the child molester!"

Frost creeps along the floor and licks at the edges of the bookshelves. "_Where is he. I need you to find him._"

Minseok yelps and shakes his Gucci boots free of ice. "Right right right ok I'll call Grandfather to ask we have a GPS thing on Uncle for shit like this oh my god Nice Neighbourhood Brother you're not very nice right now!"

\--

They find Changmin deep in and up the mountains, in Jeju of all places. 

Minseok blinks at the dot on the GPS map that denotes Changmin’s presence. “Oh, there he is. It’s just a mountain trail that he likes to hike at, during winter. Says it reminds him of a day in his old gardens, wherever that is. He brought me once and stuffed me into twenty layers of clothing, then frowned at me throughout the entire trek when I kept taking them off.”

It’s silent behind him. Minseok whirls around, going “Nice Neighbourhood Brother…?”

There’s no one in the room with him.

\--

Yunho appears as silently as he can, in a puff of black smoke.

It makes the line of Changmin’s back tense, anyway. His arms are braced akimbo at his sides. 

“Don’t run,” Yunho implores urgently of that back, the shape so familiar and dear to him with all the memories crowding in his head. “Please don’t run. Whatever it is, we can solve it. I’m fine with anything. Everything is all right. Don’t leave, please.” 

_ I’ve only just found you again_, sounds unsaid and loud, like a gunshot in the stillness. 

Changmin’s shoulders hunch up further, practically to his ears. He stays put though, and Yunho relaxes minutely, and allows himself to tears his eyes away from that cringing back, to look around.

This far high up, the weather’s clearly given up the pretense of autumn Seoul is still carrying. There’s nothing but white here. They’re in a clearing, and Changmin’s half-seated and half-sunk on a large boulder practically hidden in snow.

The trees all have a dusting of white on their branches and trunks. It’s pretty clear that Changmin has hiked up here via mundane means. His line of footsteps still bisect the clearing in a straight line, little foot wells dug into what is otherwise an undisturbed blanket of white.

Yunho walks over, matching his footsteps into the little wells, to maintain his balance. His boots are meant for walking on city pavements and less suited to hiking in snow-covered mountains. He moves slow, cautious about startling Changmin.

He’s barely a metre from Changmin, close enough for him to reach over and touch, when Changmin finally speaks.

“I forgot you.” His voice is dull. 

Whatever Yunho had thought he might say, had dreamt up out of the imaginary Changmins in his head, it’s not this. He blinks, and walks the final two steps to sit next to Changmin on the boulder. “Beg pardon?”

“I forgot you.” Changmin doesn’t look at him. He stares straight ahead and his voice is hushed. “You’re my cousin and I killed for you and I forgot you.”

“I think I mean more to you than merely being your mother’s nephew,” Yunho says, and Changmin turns at that, because Yunho’s using present tense. 

Yunho’s turned his head sideways. They meet each other’s eyes. 

Changmin looks away. “Sure. I forgot your face.” 

Yunho gives a considering hum, “so that isn’t my silk painting in your library?”

“The gift belongs to the giftee, not the gifter,” Changmin says reflexively, and then pauses. 

Yunho lifts an eyebrow, and smiles at him.

It makes Changmin’s own brows crease. 

Yunho keeps his eyes on Changmin’s. “I’ll also like to think I mean more to you than how my face looks.”

Changmin’s gaze dart to the side and back to Yunho’s. “I shouldn’t have.”

Yunho shifts closer, so that their knees are touching. The cold is a distant memory against Yunho’s legs, even though his low body heat is sufficient enough to melt the snow and damp is creeping against his trousers. “Do you mean to say you’ve forgotten me?”

Changmin opens his mouth, and closes it. He opens it again. His eyes dart about the clearing again, agile and frantic like a swallow. 

Yunho’s gaze is steady, and still aimed at him. 

Changmin looks back at Yunho.

“You were very angry that day you thought I had barged into your library,” Yunho says gently. 

Changmin shivers, with every word he utters. Yunho doesn’t think it is because of the cold. “You look like you wanted to run me through with your sword and burn me to a crisp with your goblin fire, when you thought I had touched the silk. You said-”

“‘Don’t you fucking touch the only good thing I have left on this fucking accursed earth’,” Changmin recites tonelessly, and peers down at his hands. They’re clenched tight into the fabric of his trousers.

Yunho looks at the downturned sweep of his lashes, and aches for the little boy who stood on his feet so long ago and claimed him for his own. 

Changmin’s not finished. “I said… I said, ‘someone worth ten thousand of you gave that to me’. What a joke.”

“So you don’t think I’m worth ten thousand of me anymore?” Yunho asks, and laughs when Changmin looks up quickly at that. His hands now lay half-curled on his lap.

There’s more than two thousand years between them, and too many lifetimes.

Yunho’s not the same person Changmin knew in that different land, and that different time. Changmin’s not, either.

He’s less. He’s more. He reaches out, and dares to take one of Changmin’s hands. 

Changmin shudders at that, and gives a silent hiccup of a gasp. His fingers grow rigid in Yunho’s grasp. 

Then he flips his hand over, and interlocks his fingers around Yunho’s. His grip is iron-tight. 

Yunho takes a deep breath, but Changmin beats him to it. “You didn’t forget me. You had to be given the tea of the dead twice, to even not think about me. I saw it in your head. When we-” he breaks off.

“You are not me,” Yunho tells him, voice soft. He strokes his thumb over the elegant arch of Changmin’s knuckles. “And I am not you.” 

Changmin says, “I doomed you to an endless limbo of being the wandering dead. I kept you suffering and restless, for more than two thousand years,” and hunches over, his breath rattling out in strangled gasps.

His hand is still tight about Yunho’s. His tears fall, plopping hot miniature craters into the snow. They make little dark pockmarks in the churn of pristine white.

Yunho lets him cry for a while, and then tugs at Changmin’s hand, swinging it.

“I’m glad,” he announces to the clearing. 

“What?” Changmin looks up. His eyes are red, and his nose and mouth are an unattractive mess of snot and saliva. Yunho looks at him and wonders if the old Yunho from millennia ago also found this pretty.

There is a disturbingly large amount of memories in his head now, of Changmin being beautiful in spring and summer and autumn and winter and all the moments between.

That Yunho really was quite a bit of an idiot. About more than a few things.

Yunho shrugs. “I said I’m glad. Otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” he gestures about them, at the snow-white clearing, “holding hands.” 

He slides a glance sideways at Changmin, lightning fast. “We wouldn’t have kissed.”

Changmin opens his mouth and works his jaw around words, but they never come out. He closes his mouth. Opens it again. 

When he does speak, his voice is very low. “You have always been the braver one.”

Yunho smiles at that, and cuffs him gently about his ear with their joined hands. “And you have always been flatteringly inclined towards every little thing I do.”

They sit like that for a while, until Changmin asks abruptly, “do you think this will happen every single time?” 

"Hmm?" Yunho is looking up. Snow is falling, light and playful.

A flake lands on his nose, and he wrinkles it. It tickles. 

Changmin's still talking, and Yunho tunes back in. 

"-I got disconnected images, but it's enough to see what you saw, in your head. Does it happen only this first time, or do you think it'll happen every single time we-" he breaks off again.

Yunho can't help himself. He grins at Changmin, wiggling their fingers together. "Are you being shy? Is that a thing you do now?"

Changmin ignores him. "Have you done this with other people before?" His face darkens. "Is that livestream of images a common occurrence?"

"You're shy, and jealous," Yunho decides, and before Changmin can reel back and say anymore, leans over to press his lips against Changmin's. 

Changmin's struck mute after that. Yunho pulls away, mildly surprised despite his own suspicions being verified. "No images. Seems like a one time thing."

Changmin's frozen, and then he jerks like a marionette who’s got its strings pulled. Then he’s on fire. “You can’t just! Do it like that!”

Yunho makes a face at the completely and utterly unpleasant feeling of sitting in a puddle. That Changmin’s set himself on fire also means his goblin flames have melted the snow fully. Water is now soaking urgently through Yunho’s trousers. “Min, did you really have to do that?”

Changmin pauses in his histrionics to properly look at Yunho, and at the sodden state he’s reduced both their clothing to. 

He waves an impatient hand, the one that’s not caught in Yunho’s. 

Yunho prods a finger at his trousers. Dry, and heated too. This must be one of the perks of having a goblin. “Can you help do my laundry from now on? I bet you were laughing at me every time you saw me use the dryer _ then _ hang my clothes out to dry in sunshine.” 

Changmin flails a hand at him. “Did you hear me! You can’t attack people like that! I may have been more sheltered than you over the years, but even I know about this new-fangled concept of personal space! I practise it! I’m very much a fan of it!”

Yunho shifts closer, and pecks Changmin on the mouth again, for the hell of it. Maybe this time Changmin will actually spontaneously implode from his blustering.

He doesn’t. He quietens instead, and stills, staring at Yunho with round eyes. 

His hand is still in Yunho’s. Yunho’s not letting go this time.

"They had to make me drink magical tea to forget you, Min," Yunho says gently. Changmin wrenches his face to the side at that. "Did you think there would be someone else?"

Changmin keeps his face stubbornly turned away. "Yeah, they made you forget me. And we never. We weren’t. It wasn’t like that. So who's to say some young hot girl or boy who died in skimpy harem clothing wouldn't have come along and made cow eyes and you would have just tripped after them?"

_ Skimpy harem clothing_, Yunho mouths along in disbelief, and decides to ignore that for now. Changmin’s mind must be an extremely interesting place. He ducks his head into Changmin’s line of vision instead. “Is that what you think of me?” 

Changmin just looks at him helplessly. 

Taking pity on him, Yunho sighs, and brings their clasped hands up, brushing along Changmin’s jaw. Then he leans in again, slow.

Changmin’s got his eyes wide open when Yunho fits his mouth over his. Their lower lips press together, curve against curve. Yunho exhales.

Finally, finally. Changmin kisses him back. 

\-- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Support #Chocolate in any way comfortable and appropriate for you!
> 
> Unpopular opinion: "I want to eat kimchi........." is my mood.
> 
> Comments are love. Hopefully this clears things up somewhat. x


	9. ix. sleepy hollow

Changmin treats him mostly the same. He still snipes random commentary at Yunho around the house with a whole load of staring, and he still appears randomly at the few places Yunho frequents outside of work. There’s just minute differences.

Minute differences being:

_ i) unsanctioned interruptions at work, in accordance to more favourable HR policies _

It’s six in the morning. Yunho, as well as the soul he's currently counselling, look up in surprise when the door to his tea parlour opens. 

"-and she has this male colleague whom she's close with, so now that I'm not around, I'm afraid-" the soul breaks off belatedly, at Changmin's entrance. "Er. Reaper-nim, did you get yourself double booked? I didn’t know goblins need afterlife services, too."

Yunho straightens in his seat.

His head had come up when the door opened, but he thought it was just a visual hallucination, from missing Changmin.

He stares. Changmin's dressed in another suit, oddly enough. "What are you doing here?"

"It's two past six right now. Sunrise was twenty-seven minutes ago," Changmin states. He looks at the spirit, a jowlish man of middle age. "Do you feel a burning need to go into the light today?"

"Er. Not really?" The spirit says uncertainly, then brightens. "Does it mean I get to have one more day? I can look in on my wife one last night."

"Lovely," Changmin says. "So you're fine with moving on tomorrow morning?"

"Absolutely," the spirit agrees, jovial. "Thanks, reaper-nim. And reaper’s whatever you are. It was good talking to you."

"Office hours are nine am to six pm," Changmin calls politely after the departing puff of grey smoke that is the fresh soul Yunho is supposed to offer tea with a side of reincarnation today. "See you first thing tomorrow morning!"

He turns to Yunho, and _beams_. "Hi."

Yunho gapes at him. It’s of course lovely to have his Min smile at him like this, but. Of all the absolute nerve. "What are you doing."

"Time to knock off," Changmin is grinning at him, a rare full-fledged grin that shows off his teeth and gums and unevenly sized eyes, and wow, this is really unfair and no imp beyond the age of two thousand should look like this. "Even hardworking reapers need to rest. It’s not even night. It’s six in the morning, you workaholic. In France, mortals lodge complaints with HR if you contact them after eight at night."

“I- _ this is my job_!” Yunho objects in abject disapproval, but Changmin’s over next to him and manhandling him with the ease of born-again familiarity. 

Maybe it’s the shock, maybe it’s the outrage, or maybe because it’s Changmin, Yunho lets him. 

He’s still protesting as Changmin bundles him into his black greatcoat, tchs at the thin leather, and unwraps one of the scarves around his neck -he’s got two on, this lunatic goblin- to loop around Yunho’s. 

It’s too warm. Yunho bats his hands away and pulls the black scarf off of himself, feeling off-balance, but Changmin’s moved on. He’s got his hand on Yunho’s fedora and is half-way in handing it over, before he pauses, looks at Yunho’s bare head and clucks, “no, I want us to stroll together.”

He tucks it under his own arm instead.

“Strolling?” Yunho looks at him like he’s soft in the head. “_I was working_!”

“Not anymore,” Changmin points out, all uncharacteristic cheerfulness, and he’s got Yunho out the door and he’s the one pulling the door to _ Yunho’s _ tea parlour shut. 

Then he’s trying to loop the extra scarf around Yunho's neck again.

Yunho bats it away, bats Changmin’s hands away, and goes menacingly, “_you don’t interfere with my job_.” 

The air, already heavy with snow falling down in little drifts, thickens and chills.

Changmin’s breath comes out in visible puffs, and he shudders, “I can feel this cold in my bones.”

Yunho blinks and lets up, ire forgotten in favour of hastily re-looping the scarf in his hands around Changmin instead, over the other grey cashmere length already nestled snugly around Changmin’s neck. “Sorry- I lost my temper- don’t get chilled-”

“Oh, it’s all right,” Changmin says nonchalantly. Now he’s got an arm wrapped around Yunho’s shoulders, and he’s towing him on, both of them undead fossils neatly sidestepping Seoul’s early risers scurrying to begin their day.

The skies are clear despite the snow. “You can make it up to me by buying us breakfast.”

_ii) schmoozing at corporate work functions, in the name of strengthening networks_

Yunho’s with two of his seniors, after a big case together in Gangnam at one of the Global Business Centres belonging to an international Korean brand. 

There was a workplace incident, and his boss had deployed at least fifteen reapers (almost the full team stationed in Seoul), to ensure an efficient response rate. 

One of the seniors is Heechul, and this is the first time Yunho’s hung out with him after work, after the whole ‘I macked Changmin once and got two thousand years of my life back’ thing. 

He had gone to find Heechul once he recovered marginally from the initial reunion with Changmin, just to _ understand_. To learn. 

Heechul had taken one look at his face and sunk down in a very correct traditional bow; on his knees, head and arms pressed against the ground, back ruler-straight. 

Yunho stared at him. “You knew.”

“Very few of us are actually offered the tea in our jobs, Majesty,” Heechul said, after Yunho pulled him up, because ‘that was another lifetime, Heechul, you're my sunbae now.'

His eyes had glittered like glass shards in the winter sunshine. “And I couldn’t leave you.”

“So you knew that Changmin-” Yunho began, and Heechul went back down on his knees with a thud, back straight and chin aloft.

Now they’re meandering along the Han River, idly chatting with the other senior reaper who has also knocked off, gathering for a late supper. 

There’s still an element of distance between them that wasn’t, when Yunho was happily amnesiac. At least no one is kowtowing and they’re actually able to have a proper conversation with words and grammatical syntax and eye contact.

Of course, that’s when Changmin shows up, casual as he pleases. 

It’s not even accidental, because Changmin lifts a glove-clad hand in greeting when Yunho notices him. He’s walking fast from the opposite direction.

The other senior breaks off mid-sentence, exclaiming, “is that a goblin? My word. I didn’t know even Gangnam is soulless enough for the likes of them.”

Heechul snorts.

Yunho says absentmindedly, “this one doesn’t like Gangnam. Says it’s too noisy,” but Changmin’s coming near and Yunho forgets himself in favour of hurrying forward, colleagues left aside. “Were you just in the neighbourhood again?”

Changmin looks about him. Sinsa-dong is rather empty today, given how they’re all walking along a bicycle path and it’s eleven thirty on a Wednesday night. “No, I came out to meet you.”

“Oh,” Yunho says, caught off-guard. 

Changmin turns in the meantime, offering a smile with too many teeth at Heechul. 

“Xi-che.”

“Majesty.”

They bow at the waist to each other. 

“You both knew?” Yunho gapes at them. 

“Oh, no,” Heechul says, breezily enough. But he’s got his eyes on the ground when Changmin’s still looking dead straight at him. “Not till this winter. His kind aren’t in the Books of Life and Death. But I knew he must still be bumming around somewhere, for you to suddenly remember everything.

“We haven’t seen each other in more than two thousand years, Xi-che, and this is how you speak to your king?” Changmin queries, and smiles wider.

Heechul merely bows again. His eyes are still firmly trained on the ground. “I didn’t follow you in the end because you were my king. I serve only one. And you knew that.”

The other senior reaper blinks. “Do you all… Know each other? Heechul and Yunho, you didn’t tell me you know a goblin.” 

He’s ignored.

Yunho looks between Changmin and Heechul helplessly.

Changmin’s got a too-big grin affixed on his face, razor-sharp. There is an ominous rumble of thunder in the distance, and the Han River’s suddenly choppy. 

“Right,” Yunho says, and takes Changmin’s hand. 

That jerks Changmin out of whatever staring contest he and Heechul and the ground are involved in. 

Yunho tugs at his fingers and Changmin follows, unresisting. “Sorry, seniors, have to walk a goblin. Let’s do supper another day!” 

He flees, Changmin’s hand clutched in his own, and speed-walks till they’re off the path and out of sight. Changmin laughs, a mere step behind him the entire time. 

_ iii) conducting grocery runs, to keep the house in ship-shape _

Weeks passed before Yunho comes to the realisation that Changmin is making a habit of meeting him after work. 

Either it happens at his tea parlour in the twilight hours; or Changmin actively bestirs himself from the house to go out and about, if it’s later at night because Yunho’s at an off-site. 

Changmin just snorts beneath his breath, when Yunho says it out loud to him. “Took you long enough.”

It’s deep night now, because Yunho had a longer case that ate into twilight and beyond. Today's case is a father worried about leaving his young family behind, and Yunho had sat patiently with the tea, whilst the soul cried over overworking himself to the bone -and to death- for his loved ones, then ironically abandoning them now against his will.

He’s a bit hungry, and he opens his parlour door to see Changmin leaning against the stone wall outside. His goblin's got a leg kicking idly at the snow drifts lining the old stone walls.

After the first incident when Yunho got a bit shouty, Changmin never quite barges in so rudely ever again. 

In return, as a compromise, Yunho’s brought an incongruously modern clock into his parlour and placed it at his tea table, neon numerals a blaring reminder of time. 

Half the time he still forgets to look at the clock anyway. Usually the souls he shepherds bring it to his attention, because of how out-of-place it looks amongst the beautiful wood furnishings.

Changmin just rolls his eyes and replaces it one day with an oak antique desk clock, when he picks Yunho up that evening.

This evening, Yunho takes one look at him and snickers. Changmin's got four layers on today, and a woolly-looking fleece knee-length jacket that makes him look as though he is masquerading as a very tall, very juvenile emperor penguin chick.

“Yuk it up,” Changmin says, muffled through a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face. He straightens and lets Yunho lace their fingers together, pale bare hand against brown glove. “It’s snowing again. Are we really testing out what happens when a reaper is placed in freezing temperatures? You’re a corpse.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me.” Yunho reassures, because there is an unfamiliar catch in Changmin’s voice. “I actually like the cold. Are you here for dinner? I thought you said there’s a new zombie drama on Netflix that you wanted to catch.”

Changmin mumbles something, and Yunho leans in. “Beg pardon?”

“No more groceries,” Changmin enunciates louder. They’re walking shoulder to shoulder, and then Changmin’s flagging down a cab. “We need more eggs. I’m out of lamb. And your stupid plant egg abomination things have run out, too.”

“For the last time, avocados aren’t abominations,” Yunho says very patiently, and then gives the cabbie the address of a twenty-four-hour hypermart that’s mid-way in distance to the house. “I thought Minseok does your grocery runs? How is he?”

“Minseok has house-elves that does my grocery runs for _ him_,” Changmin corrects, and huddles deeper into the layers of wool and fleece and fur he’s cocooned himself in. 

Never mind that the heater is on and the cab is a small one. Changmin’s all but embedded his mouth into the wool of his scarf. “He’s all right. Bogged down with tests and papers, and grumbling about it, as usual. He’s on an accelerated programme because he wants to try and get his MBA before- well, he wants to get it done as soon as possible. But he didn’t realise that means he doesn’t quite get a winter break.”

They don’t talk about it, but they both know why Minseok’s in a hurry. 

As an unspoken favour to Changmin, Yunho’s keeping an eye on his embossed name cards, for the sight of the Kim patriarch's name in traditional Mandarin characters.

If he files the proper paperwork for it in a timely manner, he should be able to buy Changmin at least a day for the final farewells, when it happens. It should be any month now.

Yunho tucks those thoughts to the back of his mind. He pats a finger along the grain of wool down Changmin’s arm. “So we’re… getting groceries because you don’t want to bother him?”

“Something like that,” Changmin says, and darts a look at Yunho.

Yunho just hums, and laces their fingers together.

They’ve reached, alighting after Changmin flings a handful of gold at the bemused cabbie. 

Yunho turns and gives him a ten thousand won note instead, to further confusion, “hey, boy, the metre’s only for four thousand won! You sure? All right!” 

Changmin’s already in the entrance of the hypermart, impatiently stamping his feet by the heater. Then there’s too much squabbling about organic free-range eggs versus mass produced eggs, and why do we have to buy so much fruits and do you have to eat so much meat when they’re known carcinogens and Yun, do either of us look remotely like beings who will actually get cancer.

Yunho cannot stop laughing, and Changmin’s got an arm around him. They have too much fun sniping at each other, which leads to them buying useless shit that’s more likely to go bad, than be eaten. 

“Maybe we should have called Minseok,” Changmin says, blinking at how they’ve somehow acquired and filled a trolley.

Yunho hums, and throws in a pre-packed loaf of vegan strawberry pound cake. “Didn’t you say he doesn’t like you eating instant things? We shouldn’t call Minseok.”

After, they end up with so many bags of groceries that they both have to split up and head home with a few sacks at a time, via their individually paranormal means of travel.

\--

Now that he thinks about it, perhaps Yunho can’t quite call the changes in Changmin’s treatment of him as minute differences. 

Yet there really isn’t much change, on the whole. 

They’re still housemates almost used to each other’s presence in a co-shared space. 

Changmin still judges him for not eating meat, and he still gets extremely odd about what he calls his ‘Netflix and chill’ time. 

When Yunho does his morning yoga, Changmin still stares, although he’s got commentary now to go along with his staring. 

Yunho still finds his fresh avocados too often accidentally-on-purpose deposited into the rubbish bin. 

There’s still ancient history between them. But other than Changmin brushing a finger over Yunho’s lapel brooch in latent realisation that the shape is of a swallow, and going very quiet for two days, they don’t talk too much about it. 

What is there to say? Yunho is just happy they've been allowed to find each other. 

He doesn't like to dwell too much on how long Changmin's been alone. It makes him sad, and he goes quiet then, which makes _ Changmin _sad.

He also doesn't like to think about how this is very likely sanctioned by upper management, on his end. 

Yunho knows that thought clearly hasn't occurred to Changmin yet. He is treating it like a serendipitous miracle.

For that, Yunho is grateful. 

There’s still something hesitant in Changmin’s kisses, sweet and scant as they are. 

Yunho knows he still feels guilty, for letting the passage of time erode away at his memories. 

Yunho doesn’t care. He doesn’t need Changmin to remember his face, when Changmin clearly remembered _ him_, and already held onto too much pain. 

He’s seen the pair of jade swallow figurines in Changmin’s study. 

He’s allowed everywhere in the house, now. He doesn’t even need to ask. After they came back from Jeju, Changmin leads him to the library, and they stand before the silk painting, for a long time. 

Changmin’s got Yunho’s left hand clasped in his right, and it's uncomfortably warm, well, because. Changmin's also clearly still high-strung and wreathed in his goblin fire. 

It crackles where it touches Yunho’s greatcoat. 

Be it as it may, Yunho doesn't let go.

“Silk is hard to maintain, throughout millennia,” Yunho finally murmurs, turning away, and back to Changmin. “You’ve done a good job.”

“Mortals have done it for me,” Changmin dismisses.

His eyes dart between the painting, and Yunho’s face. 

"It's just a painting, Min," Yunho tells him gently. 

Changmin stiffens. "It's not- You were-" 

Yunho strokes a thumb over Changmin's knuckles. The repetition of the movement soothes them both. 

"It's only a painting," he repeats. "I'm here."

He knocks his shoulder gently into Changmin's, because when he tried to kiss Changmin again earlier, his goblin had flushed and shied away. 

“Let’s not wear that out,” he mutters. He doesn’t step away, though, his body a warm line against Yunho’s. “I- It still feels a little strange. Sorry. I.” 

Yunho doesn’t care. He’s fine with however slow Changmin wants to take this.

They have all the time in the world. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are very very much love. Everyone, please stay healthy and safe. Not just physically, but mentally, too. 
> 
> /goes back to banging head on the wall over voc au ch. 18.


	10. x. ghost

It’s Monday evening. 

Changmin’s half-way through his rosemary-and-butter seared lamb cutlets when the sun decides to flee, shorter business hours due to winter.

He’s camped out in the living area, dressed in pyjamas and a housecoat and slippers and socks, because it’s snowing outside now, grey and dim despite his best efforts.

The zombie drama he was coveting has had its entire first season made available on Netflix, and Changmin means business. 

He’s going to marathon this, and he’s already prepared. The ground storey is nearly unrecognisable, because this drama is only six hours long and Changmin fully plans to devour it in one sitting, and he intends to be comfortable while doing it. 

For that, one requires two duvets, a body-length bolster and another heap of throw pillows.

He’s already nagged Minseok to check with their company’s contacts on when season two and three will drop, and was horrified to learn that they’re still searching for investors.

“What do you mean?” Changmin demanded, when Minseok relayed that over the house phone. “Searching for investors? Didn’t the trailers already made a huge impact globally? Didn’t they rack up a lot of views on some viewing site or other?”

“Jesus, Uncle, it’s YouTube, how do you still not know YouTube?” Minseok’s voice crackled down the landline. “And my spies tell me they went so over the budget that that it wasn’t even funny. Like, they added an additional zero to the figure.” 

“The only Tube I know is in England,” Changmin snapped before going rapid-fire, “didn’t you watch the trailers? They look like real zombies! In Joseon! This is hilarious. I need to watch this. Is the writer a zombie? The writer is actually a zombie. This is a trashy mockumentary memoir masquerading as a modern soap opera dressed up in historical clothing. I need to know what happens. If they need money, get them money. Have the company sign up as a major investor!”

“Yeah, Uncle, no, we deal in idols, remember,” Minseok began. Changmin scowled, phone pressed to his ear, “then funnel in cash via one of the shell companies! I need my seasons two and three. This is even better than Downton Abbey. What if the trashy zombie king is being cuckolded by his very young queen and his son? And then somehow the baby is also a zombie! Or it’s just a pillow baby? Does the writer need plot point advice?”

“Er, I’ll ask Grandfather,” Minseok said, hanging up hastily in an attempt to stave off Changmin’s excitement. His attempt only resulted in Changmin getting up to head to Minseok’s flat via his kitchen door. 

\--

In any case, the entire season for this alleged mockumentary has finally dropped, to great anticipation on Changmin’s end. 

Yes, Changmin has made preparations. 

The loveseats and sofa sectionals have been pushed to the side, all the better for him lie on his side against the coffee table, pillows tucked beneath and behind him. He’s crunching his way through a medium rare cutlet, sucking at the bone marrow with relish whilst a hanbok-wearing zombie does the same to a bloody human femur on screen. 

Yunho walks in on this, and halts in his steps, half-muffled by the house slippers. “Er.”

“Welcome home,” Changmin says, around a mouthful of half-chewed bone and meat. 

His eyes are glued on the expansive television screen. A girl wails as her leg is chomped on very enthusiastically by a middle-aged zombie. 

Blood spurts, bright red and arterial. 

Changmin sucks loudly at the marrow, and then spits out the splintered bone, disappointed. “They used to make them more juicy.”

“Right.” Yunho shoots another look at the revamped living room, and edges along the side of it. He winces as a little boy is devoured by a zombie that looked like it must have been his mother. “Er. I’ll head up.”

“What? No!” Changmin pulls himself upright from his recline, but he’s still not looking away from the television. “Hi. Welcome back. You worked hard. How was your day. Any problem souls? Are you hungry?”

Yunho blinks at the heap of …things… piled on fine china in front of Changmin, and looks away, only to be confronted by the grisly sight of a man being torn into pieces by four enthusiastically slavering zombie actors on screen. “Er. Not really.”

"I made you dinner," Changmin says absentmindedly, agog and leaning forward, as a tattered zombie lunges for the very handsome male lead, a fictional(?) Joseon prince. 

Then he deflates as the prince staggers backwards clumsily, yet somehow manages to take the erstwhile zombie's head off with a wild swing of his sword. "What shoddy footwork! He clearly doesn't know his way around a sword. I beheaded people quicker as a teenager. You did, too."

His gaze finally drifts to Yunho, when Yunho admits quietly, "I don't like to think about that."

Silence grows, only to be interrupted by another scream from the speakers. Changmin gropes for the remote, and hits ‘pause’. “Oh.” 

Yunho shakes his head, and smiles. Pulling at his tie, he heads for the stairs. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, wait.” Changmin scrambles upright. Yunho looks back in surprise. He’s already got one hand on the banister. 

“I,” Changmin says, picking at a loose thread of wool on his house coat. “I made you dinner.”

Yunho casts an eye at the coffee table, where the bones of some formerly cuddly creatures lay. “You know I’m not-”

“It’s salad,” Changmin says. He pulls up long ago memories, and widens his eyes to simper at Yunho, his stare limpid. “It’s got your avo-minations in it.”

That startles out a surprised laugh from Yunho, and the snort (and smile) he aims at Changmin is fond. “Fine. I’ll eat. Can I at least shower, first?”

“Corpses should keep clean, to avoid smelling,” Changmin demurs, and relaxes enough to cackle loudly, when Yunho chucks his tie at Changmin’s head. 

\--

Changmin looks up, alert. 

It’s been an hour since and Yunho’s wandering back downstairs. He’s in a black tee and grey tracksuit trousers, and his hair is messy from his shower. 

Changmin glares at the display of grey cotton. “I should burn those.” 

“Why?” Yunho ruffles a hand through his hair, still damp, and aims a look of confusion his way.

Changmin swallows, and a throw pillow rips itself, feathers leaking. 

Yunho continues, “I like them.”

He comes to sit next to Changmin, and the way grey cotton stretches across muscled thighs when he sprawls on the duvet makes Changmin look away quickly, and mutter. “Yes, well, I like them too.”

“What are you saying, Min,” Yunho chides, laughing. He pats a hand against Changmin’s side. 

Changmin makes a face at him, and pokes a cautious finger at the coffee table. He thought about it whilst Yunho was upstairs, and he’s cleared away the debris from his own dinner. The television is now showing an animal documentary, about a sweet little family of deer who wreck human property and maybe also spend too much time stealing strawberries. “Here. Eat.”

Yunho pats him again. “You didn’t have to turn that off. I know you like your dramas.”

“Yes, well,” Changmin mutters, gruff. He stabs a violent finger again at the Wedgewood plate. “All that blood was getting boring. There are only six episodes. Thought I’ll make it last longer.”

Yunho’s still gazing at him, attentive. 

Changmin pushes at the cutlery. He wants Yunho to stop looking at him. He wants Yunho to never stop looking. “Can you hold your tongue and eat? It’s getting cold.”

“...It’s a salad.” Yunho says, but he shifts closer, to get at the plate. He’s too close. His skin is cool where his bare arm bumps up against Changmin’s hand. Changmin feels too warm. 

Yunho slides a glance at him from under his lashes. “Stop setting yourself on fire, Min.”

“I do not,” Changmin protests, just to be contrary, and glares at the duvet, which has started to smoke. 

Yunho hums, digging in. He shifts, so that he’s seated with his left shoulder overlapping Changmin’s right, and leans in.

Changmin resists the urge to put his chin against the crook of Yunho’s neck, and instead points out smugly how he’s overlaid "your disgusting plant eggs, I don't know how you bear to swallow them, there's no taste, you have no taste" in slices atop fresh kale and quinoa, dressed with cranberries and pecans.

He’s also taken a strawberry from Yunho’s stash, fanning it out in a neat little spread atop of charred broccoli. 

“This is actually good,” Yunho murmurs.

There’s a thread of surprise in his voice, that raises Changmin’s hackles, “just because I don’t like plant feed doesn’t mean I don’t know how to make it.”

“Hmm.” Yunho shoots another glance at him, artlessly sly, and leans over to press a kiss at the corner of Changmin’s mouth. He tastes like fruit, tartly sweet. “Thank you for feeding me.”

Despite himself, Changmin kisses back, to chase the taste.

\--

There’s a ghost of a thought niggling at Yunho, and it grows and grows every time he encounters Minseok. 

Sometimes, he looks at Changmin, and opens his mouth.

Then he closes it again, because what if Yunho is just overthinking it? Changmin is the one that has the mortal boy as a ward, and it's clear he doesn't find anything untoward.

Instead, Changmin becomes more and more cross as snowfall thickens, blanketing Seoul in a thick cover of white. He's a creature of comfort, and recently he doesn’t even come down to the common rooms, preferring to lure Yunho into the master suite of rooms where he insists the heating is better. 

"It's your house," Yunho points out. "I thought your heaters are too terrified of you to not work everywhere here."

"Be quiet and get in or go away," says the creature he's sharing lifetimes with, grumpy. 

Today however, he’s kicked Yunho out, because he’s got a new paperback and a squat little flask of yellow wine to go with, which he claims warms him better.

Yunho’s home in daylight hours, for once. 

There’s a lull in his job, which always bodes well for humanity and reapers alike. He’s already received the embossed name cards for tomorrow’s collection.

Changmin told him very nicely to go away for a little while _ and let me finish this book in peace, Yun, you move around too much, I need to pay attention and think when I read this_.

Well. 

\--

Yunho goes outside then, to the garden to enjoy the weather. It’s been snowing on and off since morning.

Right now the sky’s let up temporarily. But it’s still heavy and low, and Yunho flicks a hand through the air, to pull out some snowflakes, just because he can. 

“Nice Neighbourhood Brother,” Minseok greets happily, behind and very close to Yunho’s ear.

Yunho jumps. The snowflakes dissolve. “Oh! Kim Minseok! I didn’t hear you come in.” 

“I was around,” Minseok says offhandedly. He’s bundled up in a bright silver parka, but the puffiness of his jacket is paired incongruously with bare hands and a bare head. “I haven’t seen you in a while! How are you?”

“Well,” Yunho says, curbing his smile to a level manageable for mortals, and shifting in his seat slightly, to make space for Minseok on the bench he’s on. “You? I heard from your uncle that you’re really busy.”

“Oh, good,” Minseok pats at the snow dusting the bench, and sits next to Yunho. A slight breeze ruffles and plays with his hair. “The two of you are friends now. I was worried, from that last time you found me in school. School’s killer, by the way. Don’t ever take an MBA. Too much hassle and doesn’t get you enough girls.”

“I don’t think my job scope requires it,” Yunho muses, honest. 

Minseok crosses his legs, contemplative. He gifts Yunho with a smile. “Well, you never know. Your boss might have other ideas. Career growth and all.”

Yunho looks back at Minseok, startled.

He’s never talked about his job properly in front of Minseok, other than assure him that he could produce payment in full. That took place in a single conversation, back when he first answered the roommate notice, large and noticeable on the insert section of Chosun Ilbo. 

He’s also pretty sure Minseok doesn’t know he’s a reaper, for all that he’s clearly aware Changmin is a goblin. 

“Perhaps. My job nature’s not one for sudden changes,” Yunho offers, cautious. 

Minseok doesn’t seem to hear him. “But you’re living well with Uncle? No fighting? No bloodshed? Did you try the tricks I told you?”

“Your Uncle is actually pretty easy to live with,” Yunho says, still careful.

Minseok hums, and pats at the thick canvas trousers he’s got on, as though searching for something. He comes up empty-handed though, and blows out a long breath in exasperation. “Well, I guess you’ll know, wouldn’t you?”

“I think so?” There’s something that Yunho can’t quite put his finger on. 

Somehow, something is off.

Minseok stands, beaming at him. He huffs a laugh, hands in pockets. “I’m glad. I told you, Nice Neighbourhood Brother, I’m on your side.”

“Thank you,” Yunho ventures. The hair on his nape is standing on end. 

Minseok waves at him, then heads off across the grounds, down the driveway. He goes the entire way, steady and sure, even through the thick snow that’s fallen on the driveway. Now that’s thawed in bright winter sunshine, and re-freezes itself as slippery slush. 

Yunho stands as well, shocked, and goes into the house.

\--

He knocks on the door to Changmin’s library, and peeks in. No Changmin. 

No Changmin in the master set of rooms, either.

Yunho makes his way to his own suite, where (as expected), Changmin’s sprawled on Yunho’s bed under three winter duvets and chortling loudly at the book in his hand. 

He’s clearly dragged all three duvets from his own bedroom, where Yunho had left him earlier. 

The yellow wine’s half-gone, and a wine cup dangles carelessly from two fingers, whilst he turns a page, absorbed. 

He’s clearly not aware of it, but the potpourri decorating Yunho’s bed stand table is reviving slowly but surely, perking back up into sprigs of vibrantly fresh flowers. They wave in the air, curling towards Changmin, pretty pink petals unfurling. 

Yunho stands in the doorway and loses some time just looking at him, lost in how content Changmin looks. 

But he’s got too many questions and half-baked thoughts and wild conjectures in his head to properly appreciate the scenery.

“Paint a portrait, it’ll last longer,” Changmin murmurs when Yunho looks for too long, the biting words offset by the hint of laughter in his voice. 

He turns a page, head still bent.

“These days, mortal children have updated that saying to ‘take a picture’,” Yunho informs him. He goes nearer, to sit next to Changmin by the side of the bed.

He crosses his legs, whilst Changmin slips a finger into the book to mark his place. He’s got very little pages left. His glance upwards at the expression on Yunho’s face has his brow creasing. “Yun? Is something wrong?”

“Kim Minseok is mortal, right?” Yunho asks him bluntly.

That gets Changmin’s full attention. He puts the book aside and folds his legs in, cross-legged. He blinks at Yunho, confused. “Yes.”

“You’re sure?” Yunho moves too, and toes his house slippers off. He climbs under a duvet to sit knee-to-knee with Changmin. 

Changmin gives him another puzzled look. “Yes. I raised him, because his parents died too young when he was an infant. They named him for me, with "Min" in his name, before… Well. His grandfather was so stricken with grief that he threw himself into whole-heartedly expanding the family business. I _ am _ Minseok’s uncle in everything but blood. He’s mortal through and through.”

“Right,” Yunho says. He pleats at the bedsheet, Egyptian cotton feeling like satin against his fingers. Changmin’s fingers are two handspans away from his. “Do you know his body temperature is probably lower than even mine?”

“What?” Changmin’s voice is sharp and loud.

“We sat together just now, in the garden.” Yunho says slowly, working his mouth around hesitant sentences, as he works his mind around his thoughts. “He came by to visit. I didn’t hear him come up to me. We had a short conversation. He said some odd things. His breath is not visible in the cold.”

“A trick of light,” Changmin starts to dismiss, an indulgent grin blooming across his face. 

Yunho isn’t finished. 

“I thought so too,” Yunho looks at Changmin. “So I listened hard for his heartbeat. It’s there, and normal. Sometimes it trips into a double beat. Just. Somehow, his blood isn’t warm enough.”

“Impossible,” Changmin begins with a roll of his eyes, but Yunho raises a hand. “He walked off before me. He left no footprints in the snow.”

Changmin stares at him. He’s got no quick quip for that.

Yunho stares back. 

Then Changmin’s out of bed, tossing the duvets in a heap on the floor. He’s got both feet on the floor, running out and down the stairs. 

Yunho scrambles after him. “Changmin!” 

Changmin’s on the ground floor, and tearing for the foyer. He darts out of the house, leaving the front door open. 

Yunho hurries out after him, and barely has the presence of mind to grab two pairs of shoes off of the shoe rack. Then he’s out the door and down the steps and nearly slamming face-first into Changmin’s back. 

“Changmin?” Yunho asks again, and comes around to see what’s got his goblin stock still. 

He bends down to put Changmin’s shoes on the ground and nudges at Changmin’s right knee. “Wear the shoes first. You get cold.”

“Yunho,” Changmin’s voice is strangled. His bare feet shuffle, toes curling against the freezing stone of their entrance steps. “Yunho, look.”

Yunho stands, and looks. 

The air is still clear. There’s been no additional snowfall since Yunho went into the house a while ago. The low pregnant clouds far in the horizon suggest an impending blizzard.

There’s a very visible line of shoe prints to denote Yunho's prior journey from the garden. It comes around the house, and ends at the pavement leading right up to the entrance steps, where Changmin’s now standing at, with Yunho next to him. 

No other prints disturb the snow. 

\-- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe, Kim Minseok (in RL)!
> 
> Comments are love. x


	11. xi. the entity

Yunho has to physically restrain Changmin. Changmin knows it’s not an easy task. 

His reaper has got an arm around Changmin’s shoulder and another wrapped around Changmin’s waist from behind. Changmin’s hissing and bucking and, “let go, Yun, let go,” but Yunho’s not budging, not even when Changmin kicks up and out, and reaches around to box Yunho’s ears.

His arms feel like bands of steel, unyielding. 

Changmin hasn’t been this enraged in a long, long time, not even when he didn’t know Yunho is Yunho, and shouted at him for invading Changmin's privacy. And even earlier when Yunho had re-entered his life, and threatened to take Minseok away in place of their bargain that very first day. Even then Changmin was _fine_, because he knew _ he _ would never let it happen. 

Right now, Changmin feels like he can happily murder millions. 

“Let go,” he growls again, turning and shoving against Yunho’s hold. 

His fingers are wreathed in blue-orange goblin fire, and scrabbling against the tee covering Yunho’s chest. He sends a bolt of electricity through Yunho to underscore his demand. “_Let go! _”

“You need to calm down,” Yunho says. His arm locks harder about Changmin’s waist.

Changmin shoves at his reaper again, trying ineffectually to pull away, but he’s bundled back into the house in spite of his efforts. 

“There is a thing masquerading as Minseok,” Changmin spits, fiery goblin sword materialising in one hand, in a death grip. “There is a thing masquerading as my boy and I need to go after it and _ get him back_.”

Minseok’s his, more than any of his forefathers, because Minseok was named for him.

And Changmin was there when he was a crying helpless infant with an emotionally-crippled grandfather and Changmin was there to bring him to his first taekwondo lesson and Changmin was there feeding him when there were only servants and Changmin was there at his middle school graduation at his CSATs at his university ceremony and Changmin was there in all the milestones between milestones. 

Minseok is _ his_. Changmin doesn’t let go of what’s his easily. 

“Wait,” Yunho kicks at the entrance door behind them. It slams shut.

The walls start to shake, too small to contain the full force of Changmin’s rage. 

“_Wait_. We need to talk about this. We need to _ think _ about this.” Yunho tries to keep his voice low and unruffled.

He hauls Changmin back bodily, when Changmin claws for the door again.

“Let me go,” Changmin says, stilling. “Either it’s an imposter, or something out there killed my boy. Let me go.”

He thinks he sounds calm enough, but Yunho’s arms tighten around his waist. 

“No,” Yunho says. “Calm down. Stop setting the trees on fire. Stop making it snow like that. Innocent mortals are out there.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Changmin enunciates in staccato, but Yunho’s got a hand at his chin and he turns Changmin forcibly by his jaw, so that he can look out the window. 

Snow whips around furiously in fat flurries, blinding and blizzard white. The entire orchard is on fire, already-bare trees blackening and shrivelling in the blaze. 

“Stop,” Yunho is gripping Changmin by the nape of his neck with both hands, thumbs framing Changmin’s jaw. “Min. Changmin. Stop. Stop and _ think_. We don’t know what’s happened to Minseok. Wait.”

“Something’s got him,” Changmin says. He feels numb. He clutches at Yunho’s arms, trying to get him to understand, to let go. “Something’s got my boy. He’s mortal. He’s fragile. He’s easy to hurt. Something’s got my boy. Something’s killed my boy.”

“No,” Yunho soothes, pressing down, giving Changmin a gentle shake. “No, no. He’s not dead. If he is, I can feel it. He’s not dead.”

Outside, the wind stops howling. 

“He’s not dead,” Changmin repeats. Gasps. 

“No,” Yunho shakes him again, letting up on his grip slightly, cautiously, when Changmin merely flops in his grasp. “I’m a reaper, remember? I’d know. He’s not dead. He’s neither just a body nor just a soul. It’s just. He didn’t feel mortal.” 

The trees smoke, fires extinguished to leave behind ashen crowns.

“I’m listening,” Changmin says. 

Yunho hesitates, clearly trying to pull together something that has been trapped at the back of his tongue. Changmin lets him, content to wait, because this is about Minseok. 

Distantly, he’s aware that he’s tracked dirt into the house. 

“I felt something like that only twice before,” Yunho finally tries, voice soft and tentative. “Minseok felt… _ busy_.” 

Changmin crowds closer. 

“I--” Yunho starts, and tries again. “Before I. I always felt it was odd. Didn’t you?”

“What was odd?” Changmin narrows his eyes at Yunho. “Don’t think I don’t know that you are removing me to the library.”

“That’s your favourite room, maybe you'll be able to actually make use of your brain in there,” Yunho volleys, and hesitates again. He stops shoving Changmin along, hands hovering. “Min, didn’t you ever think it odd that we should meet again this autumn?”

Changmin’s on the staircase, three steps higher than Yunho. He stares down. “What are you saying?”

“I’ve thought about this,” Yunho says. 

This is news to Changmin. 

Yunho’s never breathed a word about it, till now. He’s rushing in his explanation, “your house is beautiful, Min. It’s prime location for people who want to have Seoul accessible to them, but not live amongst the hustle and bustle. Did I ever tell you? I found the advertisement for it in Chosun Ilbo. It took up a whole page, in the insert cut.”

“The advertisement that… Minseok placed.” Changmin says slowly. He’s missing something. He knows he's missing something. “Without telling me.” 

“It’s Chosun Ilbo, Changmin.” Yunho takes a step up. Closer. “Millions of people read Chosun Ilbo. When I saw it, I called and asked for a showing. It happened that very afternoon. When I reached here, I took one look at your house and thought I would be too late. That scores of other people would have been by and the notice would have been answered.”

“I don’t remember any strangers coming by for showings.” Changmin’s traced a gouge into the banister, wood withering. He tries to calm himself down, and mends it. “I don’t. I didn’t even know Minseok did what he did, until the morning of the day you were supposed to move in. He told me I would be getting a roommate, because he couldn’t check up on me that often, with him going back to school.”

Yunho goes up another step. 

If Changmin leans forward, he can press his nose into Yunho’s hair. He does. 

When Yunho speaks, Changmin can feel the vibrations from where his nose is pressed into the top of Yunho’s head. It’s odd and comforting at the same time. “The actual negotiation of the lease, and contract signing were all very smooth. It only took hours, Min.” 

Changmin pulls him up the final step, and they edged backwards, into the landing. 

They look at each other. 

He reaches out a hand, and laces his fingers with Yunho’s. “What are you saying, Yun?”

Yunho counters with a question. “Does Minseok get wilful with you and yours?”

“No. I’ve spoilt him, but he’s got a good heart. Even when he knows I don’t truly get angry at him, he’s,” Changmin breaks off. “Oh.” 

“It’s been more than two thousand years, Min.” Yunho leans in, earnest. “Why now? Doesn’t it feel strange to you?”

“Just say it, Yun,” Changmin takes his hand. It’s his house, his nest, and it’s empty save for the two of them, but they’re whispering anyway, hushed. The walls might have ears. “Say it.” 

Yunho looks at him. “Doesn’t it feel like fate?”

\--

If it's fate, there's only one possible entity involved.

Changmin doesn't want to think about that, because it's impossible. Instead, he calls Minseok’s grandfather with the house phone, with Yunho listening in. 

He hangs up, grim. He stares at Yunho. He doesn’t know how to process this. 

“What is it?” Yunho nudges him.

“That was his secretary,” Changmin says. “This morning, my- Minseok’s grandfather collapsed. They tried to ring me on the landline, but couldn’t get through. Minseok volunteered to come tell me the news.”

“That was when he came to the house,” Yunho muses. “But it was to talk to me.”

Changmin gets up, and heads for a door. 

\--

After the twenty-ninth doorway he’s tried, Changmin feels like he ought to give up. Minseok, or whatever's masquerading as Minseok, clearly doesn't want to be found. 

He tells Yunho this. He doesn’t want to give up. If anything, he feels a tantrum coming on. 

“Control yourself, Min,” Yunho says. He’s dressed in his black suit and black shoes and black oxfords, and he’s straightening his fedora. Changmin was with him, in the library, when a thick stack of embossed name cards dropped into Yunho’s lap. 

Changmin knows Yunho needs to get to work. There’s an emergency case, a sudden summons. 

He also knows he doesn’t want Yunho to go. 

Sucking in a long breath, he dogs Yunho’s footsteps, as his reaper goes around the house, scarfing down a quick cucumber sandwich (“Cucumbers smell,” Changmin says childishly) and gathering the instruments of his trade.

He hovers, breathing down Yunho’s neck, and lurks until Yunho finally gets the hint. He offers, “... did you. Do you want to come with?”

“Yes,” Changmin says immediately. 

He can’t read the look on Yunho’s face, but then eyebrows are raised, and he’s asked, “in pyjamas and bare feet?”

“Don’t leave without me,” Changmin shouts, running to take the stairs three at a time. “Give me two minutes. I’ll change. _ Don’t leave without me. _After you’re done, let’s go look for Minseok.” 

\--

Yunho heads to his job, name cards in one hand and Changmin a dark shadow upon his heels.

"That usually is me," Yunho tells him. 

His goblin looks jittery; or what Yunho can see of him, which is slicked back hair and two eyebrows and eyes and half a nose and two ears bright red from the cold. 

The rest of him is dressed entirely in black; black winter ankle boots coupled with black trousers topped with a sturdy black turtleneck. He’s got a thick black peacoat tossed over that, and yet another overlarge yet sleek cashmere scarf, also black, wrapped around his face and neck. 

His hands are covered in midnight black leather gloves, and he's got Yunho's fingers grasped in his. It feels buttery soft. 

“What?” Changmin is distracted and curt, eyes darting about as they make their way up Itaewon. His anxiety means there are low roiling clouds drifting overhead about the sky, restless. 

It’s literally a ghost town. Changmin’s tantrum, plus the nature of the incident that has Yunho making his way to work, means that the area is deserted.

Lingering souls peek after them. A few try to hail Yunho with pleased recognition, but flee with a squeak when they see what he’s got with him. 

“You, stalking like black Death, a step behind me,” Yunho says in response. He's pulled a step away, hand half-raised to greet his regulars, but they've already vanished. “That’s typically my role.”

Usually Changmin will either raise a bored eyebrow at him or laugh or even snipe back, depending on his moods, quicksilver that they are.

He does neither now. Instead, he reaches out again to thread his hand through Yunho’s, dark leather against pale hand. 

“Tell me again, Yun,” he says now. Begs, almost.

Yunho squeezes his hand, and draws him closer. Changmin fits against his shoulder, like a missing puzzle piece. “He’s not dead, Changmin. I would know.”

And he does.

Minseok didn’t feel dead, in their encounter in the garden. He just didn’t feel… right, for a supposedly mundane mortal. 

They turn to go into the nightclub indicated in the flagged email that landed in Yunho’s inbox an hour ago. 

Yunho glances at the topmost card again, as is his wont. Time of death is supposed to be in thirty seconds. 

He takes a deep breath, and pushes into the building. He’s still got Changmin’s hand in his. 

It’s untoward, and he knows some of his more traditional colleagues might raise a complaint with HR or worse, upper management, for what can be construed as outside interference during working hours, and on a large case to boot. 

Yunho will risk it. He can probably argue it as an exception if it comes to that, and cite the 'spouse under duress' clause in his employment contract. 

Upper management likes him. It'll work.

He looks at Changmin again. He can’t leave Changmin alone. Not at this time. 

\--

Puzzled, he stops in the foyer. Something is not quite right.

“Yun?” Changmin comes behind him, to his shoulder. “What is it?”

Yunho shakes his head. Checks his watch. Checks the cards. Time, location, date.

Everything's accurate.

He looks around again. There’s nobody around- living or otherwise.

“Impossible.” Removing his fedora slowly, he shuffles through the name cards, and then walks, rapid, through the darkened foyer to the cloakroom and to the main rooms, equally dark and where the drinking tables open out to an expansive dance-floor that narrows into a curving stage, which folds cleverly on the side into the bar.

“Yunho?” Changmin follows him. 

It’s completely and utterly empty. Still. Devoid of souls. There isn’t even another reaper in sight. 

“What?” Yunho murmurs in confusion.

Unbidden, the hairs on his nape are standing, again. The air feels heavy. Expectant. 

“Yunho?” Changmin asks again. His voice is sharp, a knife through the stillness of the dark. “Yun, what is it? Where are the dead people? You said you have a job here, right?”

Yunho shakes his head, charging back towards the dance-floor in the centre. 

It’s dim save for the safety lights, which means there are interesting shadows dancing on the walls that -Yunho realises now- might not be wholly natural. 

He spins on his heel and comes up against Changmin, who’s reaching out for him. 

“Yunho.” Changmin’s got both hands wrapped around Yunho’s elbows. His gaze is narrowed and focused- the most attentive Yunho’s seen him since the encounter with Minseok(?) this morning unravelled him. “Yun. Stop it. What is it?”

“There’s no one here,” Yunho murmurs, slow. He feels off-balanced. 

The pressure is low and thick in the room, and it manifests as a low thick echo in his ears. 

“Yes,” Changmin says, although it’s clear he doesn’t quite get it. “Did your team make a mistake? I-”

“No,” Yunho refutes. “We don’t make mistakes.”

Changmin spreads his hands, and starts working on losing his temper properly. He snaps, each breath shredding at the walls, as wires spark and glass shatter, “well. Clearly someone fucked up some-fucking-where, because there are no dead bodies or dead people and we’re wasting our fucking time here. Can’t you just, I don’t fucking know, lodge a fucking complaint with your fucking HR and we get the fuck out-”

He breaks off, eyes caught on something at the far end of the room. 

Yunho straightens, alert. 

An involuntary shiver slithers its way up his spine.

There’s a scuff of a shoe on the marble-tiled floor, and a single cough.

There’s an immense pressure weighing down, turning the air almost soupy. 

There’s a low buzzing, and a pop in Yunho’s ears.

Minseok sidles into view. 

He’s shed the silver parka, and is in, of all things, a silvery grey pinstripe suit. He’s got his hair gelled back in a cocky wave, and both hands upraised in a casual gesture of surrender, almost mocking in his ease. 

It’s Minseok’s voice that speaks, but the tone is all wrong. It’s like looking into a funhouse mirror, except there is nothing fun about this. “Now, Uncle, before you lose your temper…” 

“Kim Minseok,” Yunho murmurs, careful. 

“Wow. If you’d wanted to style yourself in an outfit that says, hey, I’m borrowing Minseok but I’m also going to make it super obvious I’m not Minseok, congratulations. You’ve succeeded brilliantly,” Changmin says, provoking and faux-careless and brittle.

A vicious grin is creeping itself across Changmin’s face that Yunho doesn’t trust the slightest. 

He edges around, and closer, so he’s between Changmin and whoever -whatever- that’s standing before them now. 

It’s clear that it’s not Minseok, or more likely, not _ just _Minseok. 

“Such different answers,” muses the thing looking at them through Minseok’s eyes. “Interesting.” 

“May I please confirm,” Yunho begins, polite. 

It won’t do to offend, until they know what they’re up against. He’s got his suspicions. If he is right, then they absolutely _ cannot _ afford to offend. “If you are, er, merely borrowing Minseok, as Changmin has guessed?”

Not-Minseok smiles. It’s small and fond and disconcerting and completely alien on Minseok’s face. “You always are clever, Yunho.”

“Right,” Changmin says. He’s gone from grinning to outright baring his teeth. “I don’t care whatever the fuck you are. Give me my boy back.” 

Startled, Yunho takes a step backwards to Changmin, to defend with a hand half-raised, but Not-Minseok laughs. “So impatient. It’s been millennia and you haven’t yet learnt your lesson, it seems.” 

Yunho stills. So. So it seems. 

So.

Not-Minseok gifts them with a lopsided curl of his lips, proud yet almost sneering in his mirth. “Oh, Yunho’s figured it out. Well done!”

“What?” Changmin demands, shifting to Yunho’s six, to his back. “Yun? What is it? Do you know who this is? Is this a colleague of yours? Tell him to give Minseok back before I burn whatever it is out of him!”

“You can’t,” the thing says, gleeful. “He’ll die then, and you know it. He’s mortal. And why should I give you your son back, when you can’t even acknowledge him as such?”

Yunho looks back at Changmin, startled.

Changmin just makes a noise of pure exasperation, “not like _ that_, Yun, you’ll believe the words of whatever that is, over me? I told you, I raised Minseok!” 

To the thing, he only snarls, and hurls a curl of fire at its feet.

It’s clear Changmin’s holding back, and the streak of blue fire lands a civilised distance away from the tips of Minseok’s shiny leather oxfords, so similar to Yunho’s own. 

The thing wearing Minseok just laughs. 

“Yun,” Changmin says again, through clenched teeth. “You look like you are almost scared. For the last time. Do you mind telling me who’s at home over there.”

He jerks his chin at the thing watching them, avid. It’s got Minseok’s arms crossed, now. 

Yunho blinks, and marshals his composure. He makes a very correct bow at Not-Minseok, who starts chuckling a low, “oh, very good, very good, you always are one of my favourites.” 

To Changmin, Yunho ventures a quiet, “that’s my boss.”

“So? An older reaper corpse?” Changmin's got his chin up, arrogant and enraged. He’s got his goblin sword out and aflame.

Yunho needs to be very careful, or things are likely to go very ugly, very fast. 

“_No_, Changmin,” Yunho emphasizes, both eyes on Not-Minseok and inching very, very slowly to ensure he’s standing again in front of Changmin. “_That’s my big boss_. Top management.” 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone, the previous chapter: DID U FUCKING KILL MINSEOK OFF U FUCKING TWAT  
me: did you all not watch goblin jfc minseok is yook sungjae LOL DID I NOT MAKE THAT CLEAR SINCE CHAPTER ONE
> 
> Comments are love. I'm off to (again) work on voc au ch. 19 .___. x


	12. xii. dead silence

There’s a beat of silence, then an outraged, “you mean God is possessing my boy right now? That treacherous interloping bastard!”

Yunho chokes on stale air, and horror.

“He’s mortal! You can’t do that to his body!” Changmin lunges, but Yunho bodily blocks him. 

They tussle.

Behind them, the creature wearing Minseok muses, “I never did like the term ‘God’. So singular. 'The Jade Emperor' was a prettier epithet, but that was boring, too.” 

“Stop,” Yunho mutters, low and urgent and fast in Changmin’s ear. 

Changmin’s got goblin fire crackling about him and Yunho’s greatcoat is smoking, but both of them ignore it, because Changmin’s shaking and Yunho’s wrapping his reaper chill about his goblin, in an effort to shock him into calming down. “He had me drink the tea, Min, I had to drink the tea, do you understand?”

He’s not quite getting through, yet. Yunho digs his fingers into Changmin’s lapels. “_I couldn’t refuse the tea because I couldn’t_. Put the fire and sword away. Calm down. We want to walk away from this with Minseok well. I think he just wants to talk.”

“Oh, that’s true.” Not-Minseok and Not-God says cheerfully from behind them.

Changmin’s taking long and low breaths, sides heaving, and Yunho speaks faster, “we need to calm down, Min, we need to think. If he doesn’t want to talk, he won’t be using Minseok. I’ve seen- we know of some incidents- sometimes we collect. Anyway. If he doesn’t want to talk, you’ll know. It won’t be like this.”

“That is also true,” is the affirmation, then he(?) claps slowly when Yunho and Changmin turn to face him. 

Changmin’s no longer on fire. Yunho inhales, and exhales through his mouth. 

He turns back cautiously, still keeping a hand on Changmin, and bows again. "Hwanin-nim."

Behind him, Changmin jolts. Thankfully he stays silent, but he still has a very audible inhale-exhale-inhale thing going on.

The thing claps again, and winces theatrically. "That's so generic. But I suppose we can use that, for this meeting's purposes."

\--

Changmin's slid his hand down, and he knows he's got an iron grip on Yunho's wrist, so hard that he hears bones creaking. Yunho doesn't wince, and Changmin can't quite bring himself to care. He'll apologise later.

In the privacy of his own head, he can stare at that- that _ thing_, and howl. _ That thing's got his son. _

That thought makes the thing turn from exchanging business pleasantries with _ his- _ with Yunho, an eyebrow raised on Minseok's face. "Oh, good. At least you can say it to yourself. That's nice. Progress."

"Changmin?" Yunho asks. Changmin ignores him.

He locks eyes with the thing in his- _Minseok's_ skin, and keeps his voice steady. "What do you want from us? What do you want from Minseok? Tell me."

"Changmin," Yunho hisses. Changmin ignores him. 

"You always had nerve," the thing murmurs, sounding almost admiring. 

Changmin doesn't want to look at how he's using Minseok all wrong. That mouth is made for smart-aleck comments and deliberate pouts, not knowing smirks and sly jabs. 

But this thing wanted to talk, Yunho had said. If not, it wouldn't be here.

Changmin lifts his chin. "I know you've never liked me. So for you to be here, there should be a reason. Say it then, and leave. Possession is not healthy on a mortal body."

"Changmin!" Yunho yanks hard at him. 

Still, Changmin ignores him. 

"Ah, but _ that _ is demonic possession," the thing refutes, crossing Minseok's ankles. It tilts its head to admire at the shine of the black oxfords it's dressed Minseok's feet in. "I, however, am not a demon."

Changmin looks at it, and bites his tongue so hard that he tastes iron on his tongue.

It starts laughing. "Oh, well done you! Have you learnt patience, finally? Looks like surrogate fatherhood has done _ wonders _ for your character development."

Changmin almost loses it then. Yunho interjects smoothly enough with, "thank you for the compliment. We are sure you are extremely busy as well, so we hope to not take up too much of your time."

It comes closer, chuckling. "Did I mention that you've always been one of my favourites, boy? You've learnt to manage upwards very well."

Yunho says a low "learning from the job," but behind his back, he's got a thumb stroking slow over Changmin's knuckles. 

Changmin focuses on it, on the way Yunho slides the callused edge of his thumb around the creases adorning Changmin's fingers, how his nail catches slightly at Changmin's. 

It keeps him calm enough to ask, "please let us know why you are here."

"Ah, that," it says carelessly. "Well. It took more than two thousand years, but you've finally paid your dues. Actually. Yunho's paid a large part of it for you, but I think we all recognise a long time ago that he fancies both of you as one. So sentimental."

"_What? _" Changmin says. Yunho's hand has stilled, a cage around his fingers. 

"Forgive me," Yunho murmurs carefully, but Changmin's gripping his hand back as fiercely, still hidden from view, "but if this is about-"

"Your goblin over there murdered more than half a million souls in your name," Not-Minseok says. It's no longer smiling now, and its voices are two, then three. "We were magnanimous. You had more than earned the right to move on. You insisted on lingering. We told you. You brought the punishment upon yourself."

The pressure thickens, heavy and oppressive against their shoulders. 

It's difficult to even draw breath, not that they quite need it. 

Changmin presses hard against Yunho's back.

Yunho shouldn't be standing in front of him. Of the two of them, Changmin's the sturdier one. He's the goblin. The thing in front of them made sure of it.

He's almost certain he’s broken Yunho's wrist, or maybe both of them, but his reaper still has an equally strong grip back on him. His voice whilst respectful, is as firm. "We discussed this a long time ago. With all due respect, you honoured my decision. You offered me a job."

The matter-of-fact statement makes the thing deflate. 

The pressure lets up slightly. 

Changmin pulls in an unsteady inhale. Against him, Yunho is too still.

It sighs, hands in pockets. "Yes, yes. That is true. And it _ is _ a job you perform so well."

Yunho inclines his head in a half-bow. 

Changmin pulls even closer, until he's standing right at Yunho's back and their hands are trapped between them. He tries to duck around, but Yunho shifts again so he's still standing fully in front of Changmin.

The thing gives an amused huff. "No need to look so protective. I'm not going to take him away. I made him into a goblin, didn't I?"

Before the two of them can even react to that, it sighs. "I've gone off-track. Sometimes, when one is old, one tends to ramble. In any case! His dues were paid by you. You were very hard at work across the years, you know. Didn't you win a Reaper of the Year from HR a few times? They even sent a memo the other day about this pesky backlog of annual leave that you've got."

The absurdity of the thing's musings ignites Changmin's ire again, but Yunho gives another warning squeeze to Changmin's fingers.

The thing continues carelessly, waving a hand, "Thus. You were allowed to go to him like the first snow."

It pauses, and scratches at Minseok's chin, "or was it 'with'? Either. Similar enough. Semantics."

Changmin stares at it, horrified. 

This too old, too powerful, too bored being has Minseok in its clutches.

"Right," he finds his voice. 

Yunho's leaning his shoulders back, against Changmin. It's slight comfort, at least.

The situation rankles, but Changmin forces out a, "thank you. Was that what you came by to say? Okay. We hear you. Please go away now."

It grins at him with Minseok's face, crooked and alien. "You're not very polite, goblin mine."

"If you want to have a body to possess," Changmin counters, "use mine. You made it strong. Leave the boy alone."

Yunho makes a sound, strangled deep in his throat.

Not-Minseok bursts into raucous laughter at Changmin's too-even statement. "Oh, you _ have _ grown! I devise the best lessons, don't I? Don’t I?" 

Its laughter is too loud in the cavernous space. It echoes. 

Yunho takes a step forward, but Not-Minseok waves him off. "No, no. No need to get all protective again. I just wanted to drop by to say hi."

It pats Minseok's shoulder with one hand, expression affectionate. "Though I really do like this skin. Smells so young and fresh… Mm. The boy tastes sweet. He loves you, you know."

The last sentence is abruptly directed at Changmin.

He bridles. 

Unbidden, his fingers curl into fists, still restrained by Yunho. 

"I am aware," Changmin says tightly. His teeth are clenched so hard together, his jaw is numb.

The thing snorts, straightening. "No need to get your hackles up. The two of you are a right pair.”

Changmin forces himself to breathe in a slow, even inhale. 

Not-Minseok hums, casual. “Oh, don't look so worried, I didn't use him that much. Like I said, he's sweet. It gets a little sickening in larger doses."

Changmin loses it. "Don't you dare speak of him this way!" 

He rips his hands away from Yunho, darting out and to the side. 

Behind him, Yunho shouts, but Changmin can't see anything apart from the smirk that thing has shaped Minseok's mouth into. 

He brings his sword out and up, rage-maddened. He doesn't know what he wants to do or will do, but he's right up at its face, snarling, when Minseok says, "Uncle?"

His voice is small, and confused.

Changmin pulls himself up short, nearly gutting himself with the open blade. He waves the sword and the fire away, terrified that he’s harmed Minseok in some way. 

Terrified that it’s somehow a trick. 

“Uncle?” Minseok asks again, slow. Reedy.

“Minseok.” Changmin’s got his arms around Minseok, and he turns to look at Yunho, who nods. “_Minseok_.”

“I think? I’m. Drunk. Did I black out?” Minseok says, and sits down very suddenly, or tries to. 

Before he collapses on the floor, Chamgmin’s caught him again. “I’ve got you.”

\--

Yunho knows Changmin’s angry. 

Not that it’s much of a consolation. But. No matter how enraged Changmin is, at least it’s not with him.

They’ve gotten Minseok settled in Changmin’s study, where Changmin took Minseok’s phone from his pocket to ring a few people and barked a lot of orders down the line.

“Just because I don’t want to carry one of these new-fangled telephones doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use them,” he informs Yunho prissily.

Yunho hasn’t said anything.

In any case, there were people trudging about in the house with supplies, and Changmin’s study has been turned into a second bedroom of sorts for Minseok to bunk down for the night. 

There was also the matter of Minseok’s grandfather collapsing to deal with. Yunho had stayed at home to supervise all the shifting and unpacking, while Changmin hauled Minseok -nearly catatonic- back to his family home and did their necessary, before dragging him back again.

All in all, it’s been an extremely long day. 

Yunho’s got an email in his inbox telling him he’s gotten a fortnight off in lieu, courtesy of “senior management”. The missive is signed off with a sickly sweet “you are strongly advised to proceed with mandatory rest once you complete your handovers”. 

It doesn’t take an idiot to understand the ramifications. So that’s that.

Looks like he’ll have two weeks of bumming around to do. He can only hope Changmin won’t be irritated by his continued presence around the house. 

It’s freezing by mundane standards. Yunho knows the majority of the mortals will be holed up. He has hopes however, that his usual cafe will still open its doors for half-days. Their strawberry milkshakes are too delicious -and cold- for him to go more than a few days without.

He looks up from his work laptop at a rap against his balcony doors, scratching absentmindedly at the black silk of his pyjama-clad arm. Blinking in surprise, he pats at the snow that’s settled on his own shoulders, and his lap. 

His goblin is leaning against the doorframe. He’s swapped his suit and overcoat for a thick turtleneck and housecoat, and wooly house slippers and socks. 

“How is Minseok?” Yunho asks in lieu of a greeting. 

“Sleeping,” Changmin replies, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pyjama trousers. “He was stumbling around like he was drunk. Come in?”

“I’m done here anyway,” Yunho says, and packs up his impromptu workstation to head indoors. 

Changmin’s not making any effort to get out of the way, so Yunho has to squeeze past him. Their shoulders brush, and the other straightens and darts a glance at Yunho’s shoulder seams.

With a soft steaming hiss, the snow previously dusting Yunho’s jumper sizzle and vanish.

“Convenient,” Yunho smiles, leaning forward to buss a kiss against Changmin’s cheek.

“You’re frozen,” Changmin turns his face with a murmur, so that their lips meet instead. 

Yunho breathes out a sigh and leans in. He likes the cold, but he likes that Changmin’s warm, too.

They kiss for a while, and Changmin steps further into him, one hand pushing shut the doors to the balcony, so they're cocooned in the relative warmth of Yunho’s bedroom. 

Yunho brushes at the hair that’s fallen into Changmin’s eyes. “How’s he, mentally?”

Changmin doesn’t pretend not to understand him. “He says he can’t remember anything. The entire way to and fro his grandfather’s house… He was weaving around like a sotted sailor on his first day of shore leave.”

“Sometimes that happens,” Yunho tells him, or murmurs into the side of his ear. His goblin’s got his chin hooked onto Yunho’s shoulder as they stand facing each other, and he’s fumbling at Yunho’s arms. “It’s similar to a hangover. I haven’t seen the -well, my boss’s possession cases with my own eyes, before this. But I haven’t heard much of ill effects. He only lets that happen to mortals he dislikes.”

“I’m reserving my judgement,” Changmin grits out tightly. “If he wakes up and he’s anything more than pure original Minseok, then I’ll manifest my sword and start burning down your management’s’ doors. Now let me look at your hands.”

“What?” Yunho pulls back in blank confusion, startled by the abrupt subject change. 

Changmin runs his thumbs down both of his forearms, and then wrists. The silk slips, susurrous shushing. 

“I broke them just now,” Changmin mutters. He’s nearly inaudible, and Yunho has to strain to hear him. His grip is overly gentle and too tight at the same time. His fingers tense and un-tense about Yunho’s forearms, butterfly taps against sinew and bone. “Your wrists. Earlier in the day. When we were with that thing. I’m sorry. I’ll heal you. I mend things. I’m good at mending what I destroy.” 

“I’m already healed,” Yunho starts to explain, but it’s clear that Changmin’s not listening. 

He’s trapped in a private hell of his own, thumbs slip-sliding over the black silk, over and over again, along the straight lines of Yunho’s very healthy ulna bones, which sport nary a crack.

“Changmin,” Yunho tries, but his goblin’s got his head bent low, close to where he’s holding Yunho’s wrists, “I put you through hell, and you were the one who had to pay on my behalf, and I hurt you.”

“Changmin,” Yunho says. 

“It’s me. I keep breaking you. I just keep breaking you.” Changmin is soft, so soft that Yunho can barely hear him. 

“_Changmin_.” Yunho puts enough bite into his tone that Changmin looks up, eyes wide and startled. 

Yunho shakes him a little, to pull him out of the thousand-yard stare he’s got on, and holds up both his wrists for inspection. “It’s all right. I’m all right. I’m already healed. That’s why I was out working on the balcony. Reaper bodies regenerate better in cold temperatures. The lower it is, the stronger we get."

Changmin’s gaze is still unblinking, so Yunho takes Changmin’s hands instead. He runs them one at a time along Yunho’s arms, for Changmin to feel along the unbroken lines of bones beneath. “See? I’m fine. I’m hardy. I’m not going to break for real.”

_ I’m not going to leave again_, goes unsaid, but he knows Changmin hears him, anyway.

His goblin's voice is a terrible, rusted thing that scrapes. "You corpses must smell something terrible in summertime."

"We bloat," Yunho informs him, trying for levity.

Changmin's got nothing witty to counter that. It's a testament to how distracted guilt (frankly misplaced, in Yunho's opinion) is making him. He only huffs out a long sigh, and leans forward, until his nose is pressed against the side of Yunho’s cheek. 

Yunho holds him tight. 

Outside, the grounds shiver, green racing through drowsing trees. 

Shy peach blossoms peep out through newly verdant branches, into the crisp air. 

Snow falls, quiet white drifting onto budding pink.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me @ everyone who is musing that perhaps they should watch goblin, MY FIC IS FALSE ADVERTISING, PLEASE KEEP IN MIND actual!Dokkaebi The Show's ENDGAME IS NOT GOBLIN x REAPER. Although it's a lovely lovely drama and arguably my favourite k-dramz of them all.
> 
> Also!! This fic!! Is sweet!! Has always!! Been sweet!! It's just!! An excuse for me to write!! Domesticshinki!!! LOL
> 
> Comments are love. x


	13. xiii. candyman

Minseok insists on heading back to his own flat after a month of being drafted into the role of third housemate, citing a need to get back to his studies because he’s got an important Business Law presentation coming up. 

“Another month,” Changmin states without inflection.

“Yeah, now you say I can stay here, Uncle,” he whinges, “but then if I flunk this dumb MBA, you’ll be the first one setting fire to my credit cards while asking me why was I bumming around your house in the first place.”

He’s accepted his personal brush with the supernatural with a lot more grace than expected, to Changmin’s disquiet. 

Then again, he’s also made the very explicit decision to not know much about what his body was put through. 

In the end, the conversation went something like this:

“Wait, let me just get this straight,” Minseok holds up a hand half-covered by a jumper sleeve. Even though snow is coming down outside the window due to Changmin’s anxiety, there is a belying balmy breeze. “So Nice Neighbourhood Brother is like you?”

“Not quite like me,” Changmin hesitates, picking at his cuffs. “But he’s not human, either.”

“Okay,” Minseok says, easily enough. “And my body was used. To have a chat with you? That’s why I thought I was blackout drunk and had holes in my memory.” 

“Yes,” Changmin says. “I don’t know how long it was for, your grandfather’s secretary said you left-” 

“But you saw me,” Minseok clarifies. “You and Nice Neighbourhood Brother.”

“Your body came to find us,” Changmin elaborates. “That was the objective. It wanted to come talk to Yunho and I-”

“Okay,” Minseok interrupts again, patient. “That’s fine, then. I don’t want to know, Uncle. As long as it didn’t do anything to jeopardise my modules, because Grandfather will probably make his secretary take a whip at me if I have to retake this MBA thing.”

“Why are you so calm?” Changmin tries to restrain himself, but he knows his voice is rising, and the candelabras on the dining table are slowly splintering, one by one. 

The trees outside flail in the rising gale.

Maybe he should have waited for Yunho to be present for this conversation, to help inject some much needed rationality and calm. 

But his reaper is out settling some paperwork and conducting handovers as is his wont recently, before he takes his two-week vacation.

“Because of _ that_,” Minseok waves a hand at the pile of jagged iron and candle wax, voice wry. “Uncle, you raised me on this. You spun straw into gold for me when I was four, just because I’d read Rumpelstiltskin in nursery class, and liked it. You made plushies for me from clouds. Things would burst into flames whenever you got angry or sad or hungry. Grandfather addressed you as "Your Excellency" and spoke to you on his knees until he was diagnosed with arthritis.”

He looks at Changmin. 

Changmin looks back at him, helpless.

Minseok’s voice gentles. “It’s not like I didn’t know you’re one of the things that go bump at night.”

“But it’s your body,” Changmin grounds out, frustrated. “It was doing things and _ it _ wasn’t _ you_.”

“Yes,” Minseok shrugs, deliberately blasé. “But you were there, weren’t you? You wouldn’t have let anything happen to me. So I was fine. I’m obviously fine now.”

He’s not, not quite. But he does make a convincing enough show of it. 

Changmin knows there’s no pushing him when he gets like this. So he doesn’t put up anything beyond a paltry protest, when Minseok insists again on moving back to his own place.

It doesn’t stop him from opening doors in the subsequent days to Minseok’s flat, ostensibly to check in on him.

Until one day, Changmin flings open his library doors to step into Minseok's foyer, only to walk in on him and his girl _ du jour_.

Changmin promptly turns to head back through the doorway without even announcing himself.

\--

Disconsolate, he wanders back into his house.

He drifts until he’s at the laundry room, where Yunho’s washing his work shirts in a small tub by hand. 

His reaper is dressed casually today, his outfit heralding the start of his leave. The days are warming up. He’s in a black tee that shows off broad shoulders and those damnably tight house trousers, low slung on his hips. 

The grey cotton is stretched attractively over his thighs as he squats. 

Changmin can actually see his muscles bunching under the thin fabric.

What a view. Changmin can feel his mood improving already at the sight of such eye candy. 

Yunho doesn’t look up from where he’s scrubbing at the shirt collar extremely energetically. There’s soap and foam everywhere. 

His eye candy is messy. Changmin’s mood wavers. 

Then his eye candy opens his mouth. “Back already from visiting Minseok?”

His eye candy shouldn’t have opened his mouth. Changmin wrinkles his nose at the mess and prods at a soapy puddle with a slipper-clad toe. 

The puddle shudders, and evaporates obediently. “I didn’t stay. He’s got a girl there.”

Yunho does look up at that. 

His hands pause in their scrubbing, and his gaze is searching. Whatever he finds in Changmin’s face is enough to make him chuckle, and sit back on his haunches. 

The grey cotton strains admirably and Changmin’s trying very hard not to look at Yunho’s lap from the corner of his eye. He's trying even harder to ignore that there are still sounds coming out from Yunho's mouth. He fails on both counts.

He's still talking. Damn him. “Oh, poor Min. Son’s all grown up now, I suppose?”

“Shut up, you old corpse,” Changmin snaps, and glares viciously at Yunho’s shirt until it strips itself of dirt and huddles into a quivering bundle, still clutched in between Yunho’s fingers. 

Yunho hasn’t stopped laughing at him. His hair is tousled, and there’s a wet patch on his tee from flinging suds everywhere. It makes the black cling lovingly to the curve of his chest.

It’s too much. 

It doesn’t help that sometimes, oftentimes, Changmin wakes up increasingly in the middle of the night, reaching across the expanse of his empty bed, only to remember that Yunho is across the hall. That he’s insistent that Yunho remains across the hall. 

A part of him is terrified that if he reaches too hard, if he grasps on too tightly with greedy fingers again, his reaper will vanish. 

It is why he wants them to go slow, to stave off the inevitable hurt, and yet.

And yet.

Yunho tilts his head back, and smiles at Changmin. He’s all red lips and white teeth and amused crescent-moon eyes that are defiant in the face of Changmin’s internal turmoil. 

The curve of his mouth is deep and wet. 

It breaks Changmin. 

He goes over to rip the utilitarian white cotton out of Yunho’s hands, growling, “I’ll show you grown up.” 

“You’re not grown up, you’re just old too,” Yunho snipes back, good-natured. He laughs again as Changmin flings the sopping bundle somewhere behind him, and lunges for Yunho’s mouth in one fluid movement. 

His fingers scrabble for purchase, high up against the muscles of Yunho’s back. The angle is off, and he bites down too hard on Yunho’s lip, and their teeth clack together. 

Changmin hisses and they go over in a tangle of limbs onto the damp floor. 

Yunho clearly doesn’t care, because he’s kissing back hard, and he’s got his tongue in Changmin’s mouth and his arms are curving up and around Changmin’s shoulders, and neck. 

Changmin pulls back, and mouths at the edge of Yunho’s jaw, and down the line of his throat. 

Someone moans. Changmin thinks it’s him. Someone’s foot kicks out, and hits the tub of soapy washing water. It’s either. It’s both of them. 

There’s soapy water spilling across the polished stone tiles. It pulls at his trousers, dragged down by the wet weight of gravity as he finds himself half-crouching, half-lying on top of Yunho. 

It’s chaos. They’re messy. 

“What happened- to being able- to keep clean-” Changmin manages, as he nips his way back up to Yunho’s mouth. He’s got his hands full of soaked grey cotton and fuller still of what’s beneath. "I should kick you out for false pretences when you answered that notice."

“You’re the one who interrupted my laundry time,” Yunho points out, but he’s breathless and also too busy licking up the right slash of Changmin’s clavicle. 

He’s got a hand squirming down the line of Changmin’s spine, and lower yet. 

Changmin bites him on the curve of his chest in punishment. 

“Don’t stop,” Yunho gasps, winding his legs tight around Changmin. 

Trickling his own fingers up along the muscled tautness of Yunho’s thighs, Changmin grins down fiercely at him. “I like it when you say ‘don’t stop’.” 

By the time they surface, the laundry room is a right mess. Yunho’s shirts are all forlorn rumples in dirty soapy water. 

There’s puddles everywhere. The floor is all but flooded.

“This is your fault,” Changmin says, but he hears himself and there’s no heat in his words, just lazy satisfaction. 

His right foot has fallen asleep. Damp is an uncomfortable bloom beneath his back.

But it’s hard to be all worked up when Yunho’s curled up against him, tracing lines up and down Changmin’s chest. 

Yunho’s eyes, cat-like in their downward tilt, are slumberous. Inky lashes fan out against pale cheeks. The curve of his bottom lip is now swollen from their frequent worrying at it. 

Changmin’s so relaxed that he can’t quite bring himself to care that they did unspeakable things to each other on the floor of the laundry room. 

Past Changmin would have had a fit. Millenia Past Changmin would have walked out to behead an entire battalion’s worth of eunuchs in order to feel more settled. 

Then again, Millenia Past Changmin probably would have severed his own spine before even thinking about performing such debasing acts to the man that was -is- his one sole, shining sun. 

“Says the person who attacked me when I was doing housework,” said sole shining sun says, and squirms around until he’s grinning up at Changmin. 

Yunho’s house trousers are hanging half-off his ankle and they’re more black than grey from being water-logged. He’s got flecks of soap dotting along his temple.

He’s also the most beautiful thing Changmin has ever seen in this too long life.

Until he opens his mouth again. “So laundry gets you going? Is that a goblin thing or a new and improved Changmin thing? You used to hate it when you had to polish your own armour on the battlefield.”

“Shut up, or I’ll throw all your stupid plant eggs down the rubbish bin again and you can eat grass off the grounds for all I care,” Changmin threatens, and pinches Yunho’s nipple, hard. 

\--

Changmin’s overjoyed when Yunho’s finally done with his handovers to his fellow Seoul reapers, and promptly demands he spends every single day of his vacation with him.

“You’ll get tired of me,” Yunho tells him honestly. 

They’re in the library, and Yunho’s just sent off his final email containing a handover spreadsheet to Heechul, who’s taking two of his lingering cases. He’d have done this in person, but his schedule’s been conflicting to Heechul’s for about two days now, and Changmin’s getting restless waiting for his (“Extremely well-deserved and long overdue!”) vacation to start. 

He’s putting away his work laptop before it gets set on fire, like Changmin keeps threatening to do. 

His goblin clearly wants to go out, because he’s got five layers on, and his hair is brushed back for the full effect of those cheekbones in the morning light. He’s mum about the location in question, though.

“Never,” Changmin says, just as fiercely, and relents. “Well. Right. Maybe if you give me an hour of alone time everyday, with my books…” 

Yunho just raises an amused eyebrow at him, because his goblin is on a roll, "and maybe two hours with Netflix, because that mermaid drama that I told you about?"

He reaches out, and brushes a finger over the shell of Changmin’s ear. It pinkens. "I thought you finished it in four days? Wasn’t that a few months ago?" 

Changmin tosses a hand carelessly. "Yes, yes. But the writer's got a new show about some star-crossed lovers from the two halves of this peninsula. These mortal children are so petty. They forget that when they turn into dust, earth is earth. Arbitrary mortal borders don’t matter then.”

“The United Nations will beg to differ,” Yunho says, poking at Changmin’s cardigan. It’s brown, and nubby. 

To Yunho’s utmost fascination, he’s got a shirt and a vest beneath, and a scarf already looped around his neck. 

It’s not snowing outside today, because spring is creeping in. 

Because of Changmin’s improved mood (due to Yunho's hard work, or rather Yunho being hard at work), some of the trees in the grounds are already flowering. The peach blossoms are particularly vibrant. 

“An institution crafted by the whims of more petty mortal children,” Changmin dismisses. “What happened to the olden days, when everything could be sorted in a straightforward manner via battlefield and conquest? It was so much simpler. And better.”

“Will you like me to bring you your longsword while you long for the halcyon days,” Yunho says, amused. 

He laughs, when Changmin levels an imperious stare at him.

\--

Yunho’s tickled when Changmin drags him, of all places, to a shop that sells those new-fangled smartphone mobiles. The shop itself has got more trees and plants in it than the small park just outside its chrome-and-glass edifice. 

He’s no stranger to technology. Upper management and their HR team had converted all reapers to using proper laptops rather than the traditional linen-bound journals since mortals started creating them in earnest.

But Yunho’s also spent a long part -a very long part now that his memories are fully restored to him- of his life comfortable without such technological aids. He is perfectly happy to only use his laptop for work, and nothing more. 

Privately, he reckons that his boss must feel somewhat the same way, too. Otherwise, senior management being senior management, they could have gone all the way and replaced the embossed name cards for spirits, with electronic tablets instead. But that hasn’t been done.

Yunho’s glad. He for one likes the feel of the thick, stiff vellum under his fingertips. 

In any case, he’s friendly with new technology. Changmin, as he’s amused to learn over the past months, has however embraced certain inventions by the mortal children he so loves to mock, and yet rejected others entirely. 

Netflix, for one. Convection ovens and electric heaters and Tupperware containers, for another. Those are a few of Changmin’s favourite things. In the house, they also have, out of necessity, a rather modern rotary telephone with a reliable landline. 

But he’s got nothing but disdain for the other flashy toys of this new age, or so Yunho reminds his goblin, as they stand under a giant steel logo of an apple that’s half-bitten into.

Changmin mutters, indistinct; and drifts to look at three telephones propped up on a metal table. They are slim rectangles of glass and light, looking impossibly tiny against the large expanse of clean white. 

Yunho follows. “What did you say? I couldn’t catch that.” 

Changmin flicks a glance at him from under the sweep of his lashes, and scowls ferociously. “I want to be able to reach you at all times, and I don’t have time to keep checking through different doorways.”

“That’s not what you did previously,” Yunho says, injured. “You had time to bum around Seoul looking for me. Is the romance gone from this relationship? Am I not worth the effort anymore?”

That just makes Changmin even more cross. “I’m not joking, you ridiculous corpse. Sometimes it’s just so hard to get hold of you. Especially when you’re at work.”

“Calling me names, too,” Yunho heaves a sigh. “The fire’s gone out from us.”

“I’ll show you fire,” Changmin threatens, but there’s also a salesperson drifting closer, his gaze open and curious. His name tag says ‘Jongdae’, and he’s got a ‘I’m here to help’ service industry smile pasted on his face. 

Yunho knows that smile. He’s used it often himself, on skittish souls that are one haunting away from digging their spiritual heels into staying on the mortal plane of existence.

Changmin’s staring to glare. Some of the potted trees flanking the counter have noticed, and are shrinking into themselves. 

Yunho coughs, and slips his hand into Changmin’s before his goblin decides to do something idiotic. Like set the poor boy’s uniform on fire. 

As expected, Changmin calms. Their fingers interlock. 

The trees straighten, relieved.

“Hi,” the mortal boy greets. “Welcome to the Genius Bar. Can I help you?”

Perhaps his gaze lingers over-long on Yunho. 

Next to him, Yunho can feel Changmin tense up again, bristling.

“Oh, no worries,” Yunho ventures, and is ready to say something polite yet final when Changmin steps in front of him, effectively blocking Yunho from the mortal’s line of sight. “I want to buy two iPhone 11 Pro Maxes.” 

Yunho doesn’t want that. He knows the particular telephone Changmin has named. He’s seen it, during his late night television binges, and in billboards around Seoul. He is not a fan of the three-eyed face it’s got at its back. 

A phone shouldn’t have a face, when it’s already got a brain. Chances are it’ll grow into something else soon enough. 

He opens his mouth to say so, but Jongdae-the-mortal boy’s smile turns a touch warmer and a touch more real. “Sure! Will you like to get the-”

“Space grey and five-one-two gee-bee,” Changmin rattles off, a nonsensical string of words together that don’t make much sense to Yunho, yet seems to please their attendant very much. “And a pair of AirPods. No, two.”

He pauses. “Please.” It’s a curt afterthought.

The mortal boy beams. “Sure! Hang on for a bit, I’ll be right back.” 

He runs off, lightning-quick, as Yunho tugs at Changmin. “Change the order to one.”

“What?” Changmin allows himself to be pulled into leaning back against Yunho, although the scowl is back on his face. “No. We both need phones. This isn’t like the pigeons, all right? We need two to communicate.”

“You can get this one,” Yunho says. “I’ll buy another one. There’s one I keep seeing on the home shopping channel. I don’t want this one. It’s got a face.”

Changmin stares at him, affronted. “No, it hasn’t. This is the best telephone ever. They said so.”

He points. 

“And then there was Pro,” proclaims a wall in bold black letters.

“The best iPhone ever,” insists another in similarly sized letters. “This changes everything.”

“Yes, it does,” Yunho says, equally insistent. “A face, I mean. It’s right on the back, I’ll show you on yours.”

His goblin sniffs. He’s not quite scowling now, but he’s still got his eyes narrowed. Behind him, Jongdae the mortal attendant is hurrying back. The boy has quite a few boxes in his arms. “Why? What is this telephone you want to buy?”

“One of the home shopping channels introduced it quite thoroughly in a programme last week. You’ve seen it before, too,” Yunho shifts into Changmin, but not too much that the telephones are out of his sight. He does not trust them enough to turn his back on them. “The drama that you just started to watch. The one with the star-crossed mortal lovers bound by arbitrary border lines? This phone is everywhere in it. I saw it in their teasers.”

Changmin raises an eyebrow. 

Yunho wracks his brain. He can’t quite remember the name, but. “Minseok! Minseok uses one of their phones, too. The one that folds.”

“Wait. Samsung? You want to buy phones from Samsung?” Changmin says, aghast. “The Samsung that makes palatable televisions? Although I could use a bigger screen. Remind me to ring Minseok about that.”

Yunho shrugs. “Is that the company that makes those phones? I guess.”

Two prospective customers nearby shrink back, mortally offended and mouthing ‘Samsung?’ with looks of deep disgust. 

Jongdae the mortal attendant comes to a halt next to them. He looks distressed.

Changmin ignores them, his disbelief sharp as lasers and aimed solely at Yunho. “I gave them their first post-war windfall in the sixties! ”

“Well,” Yunho reasons. “We can see this as a continuation of support, then. Besides, they’ve pens in their phones. I like pens.”

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this some months earlier. They finally- well- well. And also loads of meta references in this chapter. #PPL
> 
> Am in a bit of a funk due to more unfortunate events in the family. Bit harder to walk out this time.
> 
> Comments are love. x


	14. xiv. a quiet place

The shiny smartphone on Yunho’s desk buzzes. 

He pauses in the middle of rubbing boot polish onto glossy leather and eyes it, or what he can see of it, from where he’s crouched on the carpeted floor of his sitting room. 

It stops buzzing. 

Humming, he goes back to polishing his work shoes.

Yunho's done three pairs of oxfords, and they’re lined up next to him like a row of shiny soldiers, dressed up and turned out well for battle. Four pairs to go. 

The phone buzzes again. He looks up, and frowns at the distance between himself and the desk, and down at the black boot and brush in his hands. He’s just started on the arch. He’ll go pick up his phone if it doesn’t stop buzzing.

It stops buzzing.

Appeased, Yunho goes back to swiping polish in a wide arc.

His phone buzzes again. 

Before Yunho can react, however, the sitting room door slams open.

Changmin looms in the doorway, menacing. The door scurries itself close behind him. “You.”

Yunho looks at him, and points a finger grimy with polish back at himself. “Me?”

“_You_.” Changmin scowls. “I rang you. Why are you not answering your phone? Where is it? Did you leave it in your bedroom? The point of getting these accursed things is so that you carry yours with you!”

Yunho looks at his desk. Changmin follows his gaze, and makes a disgusted sound. “There it is! It’s right there. You couldn’t have picked up?”

“Min,” Yunho ventures tentatively. “Were you outside?”

Changmin looks at him like he’s grown two additional heads _ and _declared himself Nezha. “No. Why would I be? You just saw me in the kitchen half an hour ago.”

“Okay,” Yunho blinks, and puts down the boot. It feels like he’s missing something. “Sorry. Run this by me again. Why are you ringing me?” 

“Because I wanted to talk to you,” Changmin snaps back, more viciously than warranted, and promptly flushes. He glares at the shoes lined up in front of Yunho. “_This _ is what you were doing? You’re on leave!”

Yunho is charmed.

He puts down the brush too, but he can’t resist one more dig. “You couldn’t have walked up the stairs? Or just. Shout for me?”

“Can’t you see I just did that? Why do you always have to make me come and get you? And _ why _can’t I burn these shoes?” Changmin snarls, and turns redder. 

“They’re made under the Nine Springs. It wouldn’t do for them to burn, and make it difficult for us to work in more fiery conditions.” Beaming, Yunho makes to get up. 

His joints crackle; the weather is warming up. He misses the cold. 

Changmin takes a large step back at the sight of the grin on Yunho’s face. “You know what? I’ve changed my mind. Carry on with your menial labour. Goodbye.”

“You are so sweet,” Yunho tells him, and lunges.

Changmin squawks, but Yunho’s got a firm armful of his goblin by the waist. He squeezes once, grunting when it earns him an elbow into his gut, and lets go in order to back away. It wouldn’t do for Changmin to really work out a way to set him on fire.

Reapers are fire-retardant, but Yunho has no interest to find out via actual experimentation if he’s absolutely fire-proof. “What did you want to tell me?” 

Tossing his head, Changmin brings a leg up to kick him in the thigh. He doesn’t seem to realise that Yunho’s got him hemmed in, away from the entrance. “Can you stop wearing this pair of cotton trousers everyday? Do you even wash them?” 

“They’re comfortable, they’re clean, and we’re at home anyway,” Yunho offers rapid-fire, dodging. He’s unscathed. Changmin didn’t try very hard. “_You _ like them.”

“I do not!” The colour is high on Changmin’s cheeks. It provides an interesting counterpoint to the cream-coloured jumper he’s got on, and the white linen trousers. That he’s angry and embarrassed and glaring just serves to emphasize the roundness of his eyes, and the long curling lashes that frame them. 

Yunho tilts his head, and smiles at him. 

Changmin bares his teeth. 

“That’s not what you said in the laundry room,” Yunho counters, contemplative. “And _your_ sitting room. And the foyer, the other day.”

He relents, when the scowl on Changmin’s face grows truly thunderous, and there’s an ominous rumble outside. He can’t do anything about the smile on his own face, though. “All right, all right. I’ll stop. What did you want to talk about?”

“Nothing. Imbecile,” Changmin hisses, and ducks under and behind Yunho. The sitting room door shoves itself open hurriedly, for him to flounce out.

It closes behind him with a click. Yunho opens it again to an empty landing, and Changmin slamming around making conspicuous noise in the living room a storey below. 

He laughs. 

\--

It turns out that Changmin had wanted to watch a show on Netflix together, given how Yunho is on his vacation. 

The coffee table is nearly groaning under the weight of the vegan finger food and snacks on it; from fresh strawberries to guacamole to char-grilled kale.

Changmin glares it into cowering submission. 

"Min," Yunho says, to make Changmin cough and finally look away from terrorising the furniture.

It also turns out that the particular show Changmin had wanted to marathon with him is the second season of the historical zombie mockumentary he had first started a couple of months ago, which Yunho had walked in on and had gotten squeamish at. 

He’s gotten Minseok to do something.

Yunho isn’t sure what precisely, because Changmin just made a very odd face and said things too fast for him to catch, when he asked. 

In any case, the second season is now made available in record time.

“There’s less,” Changmin starts, and scratches at his ear. “Well, it’s not that there’s less blood, but the blood is shown in a slightly different way this time round. Minseok told me the director’s been swapped, and-”

It doesn’t matter. Yunho still gets squeamish. 

He doesn’t like to think about all the lives they had to take, back then.

In the end, he brings his work shoes down to the living room to polish. 

He sits at the side of the duvets, because Changmin had threatened to make his hair fall out if he gets the polish on the Egyptian cotton, and works on shining all of them into a glossy, uniform black, as Changmin chuckles at the screen and finishes all the kale with a side of steak he had grilled for himself. 

Their feet bump together. 

Changmin nudges his toes against Yunho’s ankle. Yunho nudges back. 

\-- 

“Will you bring me to it?” Changmin asks him abruptly one evening deep into Yunho’s mandated leave, when he is sneakily checking emails, and trying to make sure he stays updated. 

Yunho doesn’t want to think about the chaos that will await him if he goes back without actually looking at his inbox for two weeks. Already Heechul has emailed him seven times complaining about a pesky soul originally under Yunho’s care; who has the disconcerting habit of fleeing while running into -running _ through- _mortal passers-by each time Heechul hails him by name.

“Where?” Yunho says absently, and jumps belatedly when he realises that he isn’t fooling anyone by checking his phone from where he’s got his hand -and phone- beneath the dining table. 

Changmin shrugs, deliberately casual, and keeps his eyes on his quail. 

The way the dining chairs are creaking back into themselves betray his true feelings, however.

“Min,” Yunho says, when his strawberry smoothie starts to boil.

Changmin straightens in his seat. The chairs right themselves, and Yunho’s smoothie calms. “Sorry.”

Yunho just raises an eyebrow at him, and waits.

Changmin jams an entire side of quail into his mouth, his mumble indistinct.

Yunho brightens. “My tea parlour? Really? You want to visit?”

“How do you,” Changmin says, his mouth full, and swallows. “Yes, well, I. I never did get a good look.”

The crunch of bones is particularly loud. Yunho suppresses a wince.

\--

They meander to the bookshop first. 

Now that Changmin has a smartphone, subscribing to his favourite store’s monthly newsletter is one of the first things he’s done with his new-fangled email account. He’d checked his inbox this morning, and had the pleasure of reading a mailer that informs him on the arrival of a book on Buddhist Art he had been anticipating.

Fascinating things, really. Like little homing pigeons, except they don’t shit everywhere and there isn’t the pain of molting feathers getting over all your robes, and the constant worry of them being blown off-course or being eaten by owls before they’ve delivered their mail no longer matters. 

He says so out loud to Yunho, as they come to the foot of the slope from their home. 

The weather is pretty decent for walking today, for all that the sky is cloudy and the eastern breeze is rather chilly.

No matter. Changmin is bundled up in a jumper and a scarf, and he’s got Yunho holding his hand.

The entire way, the trees are budding because it’s cautiously spring, shy pink and white florets barely open amidst dark branches. 

His reaper just smiles at him; a funny, sort of crooked curve to his lips. He’s still in black, despite being on mandated vacation. 

The only concession he’s made is that he’s left his fedora at home. 

“What is it?” Changmin frowns at him. “You look like you have indigestion. I told you, you need to stop eating those plant eggs.”

“Nothing,” Yunho says, and grabs for Changmin’s hand. He laces his fingers through Changmin’s. “Never change.”

“Okay,” Changmin mutters, a little nonplussed and a lot pleased. “Well. It’s been more than two thousand years, so I’m afraid this is how it is. It’s good that you’re getting used to it.”

“I can never be used to you,” Yunho informs him, with the tone of someone who just said ‘pass the salt’ or ‘the sky is blue’ or ‘Changmin, I’m home’. “You’re you.”

Changmin stares at him. Then he drops Yunho’s hand, to march forward fast. 

A petal lands on his nose. Then another. 

He sneezes, and walks faster. He doesn't need to look up to know that the cherry trees lining the way are at full bloom.

Why does this accursed road have no doors, he thinks viciously to himself. 

The bookstore comes into view. Changmin speeds up yet again. 

Ten metres from the shop, Yunho catches up. He grabs hold of Changmin’s hand and weaves their fingers together again. 

\--

The bamboo chimes are silent, when Yunho opens the door to his parlour, his other hand still tucked in Changmin’s. 

He looks askance at Yunho. 

The unspoken question lingers, and then Yunho raises his eyebrows slightly in comprehension. 

“Ah, those,” he says, shutting the door behind them. “It’s because it isn’t office hours today. I was working, when you came before. That’s why they rang.” 

Yunho hasn’t been to work for more than a week (Changmin counted!), but the tea parlour is still spotless. 

Now that Changmin has his -or rather some of Yunho’s- memories in his head aiding his own blurry recollections from more than two millennia ago, he gazes around again in fascination.

He’s been here twice; thrice now. 

Today is the first time he’s had the leisure to take a proper look around. It is rather neat, a far cry from how Yunho’s study at home can look like, when he thinks Changmin is too deep in a Netflix binge to care.

It’s as lovely as he remembered, and he realises with a start that the decor looks almost like the interior of Yunho’s old imperial study way back when. 

Vaguely, he’s aware of Yunho bustling around to hang up his black trench, and ducking into a doorway just beyond his peripheral sight.

Changmin trails a hand across the tea table, fingers light on the large expanse of unbroken pine.

It’s a beautiful centrepiece, vibrant wood accentuated by the gorgeously carved pine-and-oak stools. The oak antique desk clock he bought Yunho sits in the middle of the table, accompanied by two very familiar shapes.

Yunho has, it seems, stolen the pair of jade swallows Changmin was sure he had sitting on his study desk. 

Can one steal something if it originally belongs to them? Then again, the swallows belonged to Changmin in the very first place, so.

Yunho did steal, after all. The swallows, and other things.

Amusing himself with such frivolous thoughts, Changmin pulls out the stool closest to him and the door; and sits, crossing his legs.

Even though it’s cloudy outside, sunlight pours in, an ample cascade through windows that mortals see only as a continuous stretch of stone wall. 

It’s sunshine-warm in Yunho’s parlour. Changmin relaxes, unwinding his scarf to fold the cashmere neatly into a square that he places at the far corner of the table. 

Yunho comes back from wherever he went, a glass-and-porcelain tea set displayed upon a bamboo tea tray in his hands. 

Changmin cranes his neck around Yunho. Or he tries to. But his reaper shifts a little, until he’s the singular largest thing within Changmin’s sight and Changmin’s almost nose-to-cloth at the black suit he’s got on. 

Undeterred, Changmin narrows his eyes at the doorway, an arch into shadowy dark, “where does that lead to?”

Yunho just smiles at him. He’s put the kettle on. 

“Oh,” Changmin says. “Confidential reaper things. If you tell me you’ll have to kill me, so on and so forth?”

That manages to hook an amused snort from Yunho. “You’re a goblin, Min. Virtually indestructible.”

“Wow,” Changmin looks at Yunho, and lays a hand over his heart for emphasis, fluttering it twice before drumming his fingers on the table. “I’m hurt. So you’ll kill me then, if not for the fact that you can’t kill me? Wow. You sly old corpse. What is this? Parricide? What is the act of killing one’s cousin called, again?”

Another snort, and then Yunho’s laughing. 

He reaches over to prod a finger at Changmin’s hands, folded on the pine table, and goes very gently, all red lips and white teeth, “mariticide.”

Changmin’s fingers curl inwards of their own volition, at both his gesture and that one word. 

Yunho’s gaze is particularly wicked, vixenish and deliberately turned towards the tea apparatus in his hands instead.

The silence stretches, as Yunho rinses the teacups and teapot with the first batch of hot water from the kettle in preparation.

Changmin only finds his voice as Yunho uncaps the bamboo tea caddy, to measure out the leaves required. 

A faint floral scent wafts through the air. 

“Oh,” he says, a little lost, “you remembered.”

Yunho slants him a look beneath his eyelashes.

Even Changmin laughs at how ridiculous the statement sounds. “Yes, I know. You had to drink your work tea, to. They had to feed you to make you forget. Yes.”

“It’s not solely because of you,” Yunho murmurs, words carefully easy. He holds out the caddy to Changmin. “Amnesiac me liked this blend too, plucked just right before Qing Ming. It’s apparently burnt into my bones. Muscle memory. Or perhaps it's just that my tastebuds are stubborn.”

“It’s from your own orchards,” Changmin rolls his eyes, but he accepts it from Yunho, to breathe in the long ago familiar scent of flowers. “Of course you like it.” 

“Those tea orchards haven’t belonged to me in a very, very long time,” Yunho reminds, laughing a little when Changmin drags in another breath, obnoxiously loud. “Stop it. Give it back, you’ll get snot all over it.”

“I’ll have you know,” Changmin says, insulted.“That I don’t have snot.”

“You sneeze when you make too many flowers bloom,” Yunho counters, taking the bamboo caddy back. He sweeps out two teaspoons worth of leaves with a bamboo tea scoop, onto an oak holder. “You have snot.”

“I’ll not argue with you,” tossing his head, Changmin decides, tone lofty, “since I am magnanimous and you’re making my favourite tea for me.”

“My given thanks, Majesty,” Yunho teases.

They both quieten at that. 

Changmin reaches over. 

He drifts a hand through the ends of Yunho’s hair, shorn much shorter in this different era, barely brushing the collar of the black shirt he’s got on, and swept back from his forehead. 

Trailing his hand up, and around, Changmin lets his fingers follow the curve of Yunho’s cheek, to and down the slope of his nose. 

Swift, they skip over Yunho’s philtrum, and come to a gentle rest over his lips. 

Like so long ago, Changmin presses down very, very gently. 

The difference this time round is that Yunho lets him for three seconds. Then he nips hard at Changmin’s fingers.

His teeth are _ sharp_, for a vegan undead immortal creature. 

“Ow?” Changmin says, pulling away slightly. Not too far. 

(Never too far, these days.)

“You were wallowing,” Yunho says. 

For all that his tone is brisk, his eyes are kind. Soft. The tenderness Changmin can read in them is infinite.

Changmin opens his mouth, and closes it again. The kettle blurbles happily. 

He subsides, in favour of watching Yunho pour the tea leaves into the warmed teapot, and top it up with hot water. 

“Now,” Yunho busies himself with the teapot lid, “we wait for-”

“-a minute.” Changmin finishes, in tandem.

They smile at each other. 

The minute is easily whiled away. Yunho wipes down two teacups with a red silk rag, whilst Changmin is content to watch him. His reaper places one of them in front of him. 

Its sides are carved with peach blossoms, of the palest blush.

“This is from my personal collection,” Yunho explains. 

It is but only the two of them in the parlour. Yet Yunho’s words are hushed. He looks almost shy, as he pours the steeped tea for Changmin. “We have last teacups for work, each one of us reapers. I can’t show them to you. But we have a lot of them.”

He pours for himself next, into a teacup slightly different from Changmin’s.

The craftsmanship is however similar enough that Changmin knows it is wrought by the same hand. Yunho continues, low, “These though, I saw long ago, when I was in a teahouse in Edo. I had to have them.”

Yunho’s has cherry blossoms of the purest white, bisected by a dab of delicate peony-pink in the middle of each carved flower. 

He puts the teapot aside, and pauses. Looks up, to meet Changmin’s eyes. “I didn’t know why I had to have them. Now I do.”

Changmin lifts his cup with a murmur of thanks. 

He downs it in one breath, without looking away from Yunho. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter won't be this sweet. I was <s>boring</s>squicking myself. Oops.  
But it's full circle with the tea after years and years later--   
comments are love. x


	15. xv. let the right one in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: COVID-19.

Changmin wakes to a cold and rainy Wednesday morning. 

Spring has finally broken proper, and the cherry trees on his grounds are in full bloom. 

Be it Changmin’s moods or natural weather phenomena however, it’s been blustery and damp since the week started.

He stretches, and dresses himself. Not that it matters much. Recently, mortal children are more agitated and jittery than usual, and have gone more insular than their wont. 

Changmin’s favourite bookshop is closed and has been closed for sometime. There’s nothing worthy of him stepping out of his house for, and thus nothing worthy of actually putting on proper clothing, except. 

He sighs. 

Yunho’s vacation has ended with a vengeance. There is a sickness among the mortals, and it seems like reapers all over the world have had more work, as a result. 

The window panes rattle, from the force of the storm whipping through his orchards. 

Changmin pauses in his steps going down the stairs, and breathes in deliberately through his nose. One, two.

The rain outside quietens to a more manageable drizzle.

He tucks his hands into the pockets of his trousers and wanders into the kitchen. Slowing his thread, he makes sure he enters casually, with a stroll in his stride. 

Not that it matters, when he is the only one who is paying attention to the sound of his own footsteps.

Yunho is there, clumsily slicing carrots. The cutting board is a mess of carrot peels and juice and there's a half-filled dosirak next to him.

Changmin finds it a chore to keep his voice even. “Is that supposed to be dinner? Working overtime again?”

It takes a few seconds, but Yunho finally registers his carefully casual comment. 

“Yes, well,” his reaper says distractedly. “There’s been another spike in workload, so I’m covering a couple of seniors for their usual districts.”

“They’re overworking you,” Changmin points out, dispassionately enough, or so he thinks

It doesn’t do the trick.

All it does is earn him a rare censoring glance from Yunho, who looks up and away from the extremely sharp knife he’s handling. 

His face is blank and unreadable and it feels like last autumn all over again. 

At least there’s still fondness in Yunho’s eyes when he looks at Changmin, for all that his tone is chiding. “All I have on my lap is a few more districts, Min. Those seniors; they’re actually roped in as part of the expanded taskforce for the Central Plains. Hubei alone is a mess- ah.”

He breaks off. There’s a thin slice of red seeping through his palm. 

“How did you,” Changmin strides over, and reaches for Yunho’s hand. 

The kitchen windows blur, as rain comes down hard outside in blinding grey sheets.

Yunho waves him off. “No, it’s fine, I heal fast.”

He does. It’s something that Changmin keeps forgetting.

The cut shrinks into a barely visible pink line, and then vanishes. The carrots are another story. They’re mangled, a crime scene with jagged uneven edges made even more pitiful by the mess of juice and blood all over them.

Changmin reaches for them, after Yunho grabs a handful and apparently decides it’s a good idea to wash them beneath the sink. “Don’t! What have you even. I’ll make something for you, _ don’t_.”

He grabs for the bloodied carrots and flings them into the bin in one fell sweep.

Yunho blinks down at the cutting board. “I was going to eat that.” 

Changmin sighs at the confusion in his reaper’s voice, and opens the crisper drawer to the refrigerator. “I’ll make something for you.”

It takes a while, but Changmin’s got Yunho washing up instead, while he packs a quick avocado sandwich and broccoli salad instead for Yunho’s dosirak. 

He’s done too soon. Yunho’s already shuffling through the too-thick stack of vellum in his hands, murmuring names and timings beneath his breath. Changmin has to nudge him once, twice in order for him to take the lunchbox. 

Even then, Yunho actually slips it into his work satchel one-handed, without looking away from the cards. 

The third time Changmin has to steer him away from a wall, his patience erodes enough for him to snap, “pay attention, reaper. You are going to walk yourself into an accident at this rate.”

“Accidents avoid me, it’s a perk of the job,” is Yunho’s absent-minded response. Changmin’s bristling is visible enough to make him finally look up.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, but it’s clear his heart is not quite in it, and already on work. 

Changmin sighs. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” 

\--

They’re at the front door. Yunho’s pulling his fedora down, low over his eyes. 

Changmin resigns himself to another day alone in the house, until sunrise or perhaps even beyond. 

It wasn’t so long ago when he’ll have found that ideal, when he can spend his day with a good bottle of flower wine and meat with Netflix on the television and a good book. 

Now, however. 

His thoughts are interrupted by a cool pressure on his lips. Yunho’s leaning in, his mouth soft on Changmin’s. 

“Oh,” Changmin says.

The rain shivers, and stops. 

Yunho leans away slowly, and comes back for a sweet little peck at the corner of Changmin’s lips. “Thank you for packing me dinner. I’m sorry I’ve been a beast. Work is just busy for the past three weeks, and I don’t think it will let up soon.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Changmin murmurs, automatic. “I get more reading done when you are not underfoot.”

That pulls a soft laugh from his reaper. Changmin’s glad. Yunho hasn’t been laughing much these days, because of his work.

“Are you going to visit Minseok?” Yunho wants to know. He’s straightening his greatcoat, and ignorant that a breeze is carrying errant raindrops and sodden petals down to stick against the black leather. 

“To do what?” Changmin retorts. He reaches out, to pick a nearly intact cherry blossom off of Yunho’s shoulder. It is damp velvet between his fingers. “Listen to him whinge about how people being sick everywhere means he’s stuck at home without company? No, thanks.”

“You can be his company,” Yunho offers, eyes crinkling into a smile, when Changmin pats the blossom dry, and offers it to him. “We don’t get sick like they do.”

“I don’t love him that much to endure an entire day’s worth of his tantrum fits,” Changmin informs him, and turns to the umbrella stand by the door. “Remember your umbrella. Answer your phone when I ring you. Eat.”

“Yes, Majesty,” Yunho tilts the edge of his fedora in a mocking show of obsequiousness, and turns to go. He’s got his work satchel slung on his shower, with the umbrella in one hand. 

Changmin can see that the cherry blossom is cupped protectively in the other. 

\--

“I’m not coming with you,” the soul snaps, when he sees Yunho standing five paces from him. “I’m not dead.”

Yunho merely offers a bow, and repeats the name again.

“I’m not dead,” comes the predictable response. In the past few weeks, Yunho’s heard this too often, and said again in too many different voices. 

Then he’s being lunged at, which he sidesteps easily enough. The howl issued towards his direction is long and loud and otherworldly; the living mortals going about their business in the hallways of this hospital don’t react. “I can’t be.”

It takes a while, but it is rare for a soul to resist by the time Yunho enunciates their names in ringing tones, thrice in a row. And whilst they cannot flee upon answering a reaper’s call, struggling and making the whole process drawn out and unpleasant, is however something that is possible. 

By the time they enter Yunho’s parlour, the fresh soul is panting, and Yunho’s greatcoat is rumpled. 

“Please have a seat,” he invites, whilst hanging up his fedora and coat on the iron coat stand. Thankfully, Yunho’s exertions have left the cherry blossom still tucked in his pocket relatively undisturbed.

Yunho retrieves it, and places it by the kettle. He smooths out the petals with a finger. 

The soul is still obstinately standing in the corner. 

Sighing, he makes eye contact. “Have a seat.”

Dragging his steps, the soul does, head bent and shaking. His face is crumpled in a grimace of loathing.

Yunho bows, and lets him sit by himself for a while, and turns to the backroom.

\--

By the time he comes out, tea cup and tea set placed neatly on a bamboo tray and held aloft in his hands, the soul has moved past denial and rage into tears.

“Why me?” is asked of Yunho as he takes a seat from across, and starts laying out the tools of his trade. 

The soul rocks back and forth, perched precariously on a stool. His face is an ugly mess of snot and tears and saliva, and he’s not quite interested in an answer. “Why me why me why me why me it was just the flu there are things I haven’t done there are things I still need this is unfair unfair they said it was only another flu this is unfair there are-”

Yunho bows, and starts wiping down the pitcher, and the scoop.

The kettle sits silent, still.

He lets the soul cry himself out, sprawling on the pinewood, whilst he goes over each piece in the set he has chosen today with a dark purple silk tea rag. Keeping his movements slow and meticulous, he keeps his head lowered and an eye on the antique clock. 

Usually, Yunho will let a soul exhaust itself of emotions, before offering tea, and comfort in either the form of silence or words. These are not usual times. 

In his satchel, there is still a stack of vellum with too many names for Yunho to go through. 

When there are but sniffles opposite him, he puts the kettle on. 

He’s portioning the tea leaves from the caddy, when the soul finally speaks. “So you. Catch us, right? You catch dead people and then. What?”

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘catch’,” Yunho says, honestly. The soul looks at him, defiant, but subsides at his next words. “To say ‘catch’ makes it sounds like I am using force, to right a wrong.” 

He looks at the soul. “The dead are not wrong.”

Pouring the leaves into the teapot, he listens to the low gurgle of the kettle. The soul is silent, taking harsh breaths that he no longer requires. 

Then: “What are we, then?”

“It is not something for me to answer,” Yunho says, meeting his gaze. 

“But you catch us, so, you’re a what?” The soul is derisive, and clearly not listening. That’s fine. It’s not Yunho’s job to make them listen, when they don’t want to. “Like a ghost cop? Cops catch criminals. Then they put them in jail.”

He’s got one of the angry ones today, it seems.

The kettle whistles, so he takes it off the heat, and pours hot water into the pitcher, and over the cups. The quiet flare and hiss of steam makes the soul jump, and he flinches, likely out of habit. “Fuck! Watch where you pour that thing!”

“The water won’t burn you,” Yunho explains, calm. “Not now.”

“Yeah,” an ugly sneer twists the soul’s face, contours already ravaged by acute illness. “Right. Because I’m already dead.” 

Yunho doesn’t answer. It is time for the tea to steep. He transfers the water from the pitcher into the teapot, over the leaves already deposited within. 

“You said I’m not wrong,” the soul says, still gulping inhales, vestige of the living world. “Why did you catch me, then? I’m not supposed to be dead. It was just the flu.”

Using the silk rag, Yunho wipes down the warmed teacup, the silk getting caught in the grooves of the stylised bull etched on the side. 

“Stop ignoring me!” The soul slams his hands on the tea table, agitated. “Tell me!”

Yunho pauses, and leans forward, teacup held in his hand. He places it gently in front of the soul, on top of its accompanying saucer, and sits back. 

“Are you mute?” The soul demands, slamming his hands down again. “Answer me, you ghost freak!”

Because the irony is so great; Yunho cannot resist a snort, even as he checks the temperature of the pot. The tea is done. 

The soul isn’t. 

Perhaps his ire is further lit by Yunho’s non-responses. In any case, he grabs for the teacup and saucer, and flings them to the floor. “Don’t fucking ignore me, you ghost freak! Fuck you, I’m not dead and the doctor was lying he fucking said it was another flu he said I will get well fucking useless nurse couldn’t even fucking bring me food that I want-” 

At the same time, Yunho’s phone chirps. 

He had, before coming to work today, left it on silent mode.

The teacup bounces, porcelain loud against hardwood. 

It goes for a bit and then rolls to a stop, bumping gently up against the foot of the coat stand, with nary a crack.

“What,” the soul splutters. “What-”

Yunho checks his phone. It is an email, dropped into his work inbox.

He flicks through the text quickly, and sends an affirmative response. Closing out of the inbox window, he pockets his phone. 

Frost creeps across the table, curving along the whorls of the pinewood.

The air chills. 

“Say fucking something, freak,” the soul snaps, but his earlier bravado is gone.

Yunho smiles at him, and rises. 

“Don’t come closer!” There is a crash, as the soul staggers back and over the stool he was previously sitting in. 

Yunho just hums, turning to pour the tea into the discreet basin placed behind the table. Placing the teapot aside for cleanup at a later time, he reaches around to take the kettle off the burner. 

On the floor, the soul is still cursing him and his. 

“There is nothing to fear from me,” Yunho tells the soul casually. 

From the corner of his eye, he can see that a door is materialising, on the wall next to the usual hallway that leads to his backroom “You’re merely removed from my list of cases, that’s all.”

“Yeah?” is snapped out at him. “Why, freak? You made a mistake and I’m not dead after all, right? Put me back then, I- fuck! _ Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_-”

When the screams have stopped, cut off; and the cleanup crew has disappeared with their bounty back through whence they came from; Yunho sighs. 

It’s always a pity when souls squander their own fates. 

He picks up the bull teacup, to be destroyed in the backroom when he finds the time. It may be a while yet.

At least he has managed to clean the tea set, whilst the initial punishment took place behind him on the floor of his parlour. 

He doesn’t like to watch, in these instances. Thankfully, they’re rare, over the course of his long career.

Yunho stacks the pieces of the tea set neatly together and brushes a finger over the cherry blossom, sitting next to the warmed kettle. 

Then he heads over to the coat stand, to retrieve his greatcoat and fedora. 

His trouser pocket buzzes. Yunho slides his phone out of his pocket, even as he pulls out the remaining name cards from his coat.

_ Remember to eat, _ Changmin has texted.

It brings a smile on Yunho’s face, before he marshals himself to memorise the next name card, and the next time of death.

\-- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I inserted this arc in March, when the world as is went mad. xv. is the start of the arc.
> 
> Gave the trigger warning at the top of the chapter because I know this is still a very painful topic for some of us, since it's now late July and we're still knee-deep in real-world insanity. It was personally helpful for me to write it, and exorcise some demons, though. 
> 
> Comments are, as always, love.


	16. xvi. 1408

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: COVID-19

The days that follow are a blur of _work work work work Changmin work work Changmin work._

Yunho tries.

He’s one of two reapers covering for the whole of the Korean peninsula, because these are unprecedented times and the mortals are all in disarray. 

It’s not a localised complication. He’s already hearing horror stories from the reaper team in the Central Plains, and even further west. 

He’s one of the luckier ones, in comparison.

The days still melt together in a haze of work and more work, broken only by Changmin dropping in on him in his parlour. He comes at timings after he is sure Yunho’s sent off yet another soul, to pour food and tea down his throat, and to force him to rest for a little while. 

Changmin doesn’t say it out loud. But it’s clear he hasn’t forgotten, after one such off-hand mention by Yunho in their initial conversations, that reapers still feel hunger and fatigue as part of their jobs. 

Through all of these, Yunho tries. 

He hunkers down to work, because he’s very good at his job. The routine he enforces is semi-successful through the long hours, although the issue isn’t the sheer number of cases Yunho has to take. 

What takes up time, more often than not, is that the mortal souls don’t quite understand their deaths, and they’re _ angry_.

Even so, Yunho gets to offer tea to the majority of them, and only incurs two more cases where senior management changes their minds and has Yunho step away at the eleventh hour, when the tea is already steeping. 

\--

A hand brushes across his brow, and Yunho startles awake. He’s fallen asleep at his tea table. 

The tea cloth is stuck to his cheek, his table clock reads that it is four in the morning, and it’s Changmin’s hand on his cheek. 

But they’re not at home. Changmin’s supposed to be at home, at this time of the night. Or day.

“Oh,” Yunho says. He sits up, and wipes at his face. “You’re here? You’re here. Hi.”

“You didn’t answer my text,” Changmin murmurs, swiping a thumb under Yunho’s right eye to remove the sleep. “And I can’t open a direct doorway to your parlour, you know that.”

“Ah. You texted?” Yunho says, groggy. He fumbles for his pockets, sure that his mobile is in one of them, and comes up with his hands empty.

Looking back up at Changmin, he blinks. “I.”

“It’s by the kettle,” Changmin informs him. 

He is, of all things, looking like he’s trying not to laugh. The gleam of his smile is faint in the moonlight. “Did you put it there earlier, and forget about it?”

“Oh,” Yunho says again, and reaches over for it. The metal is cool in his hands, and the screen doesn’t light up when he taps at it. “Oh. The battery died. I should-”

He stands, to go find the mobile charger for it, and staggers when feeling comes back into his cramped calves. His joints pop, too-loud cracks in the dim parlour.

Changmin’s around the table in an instant, and he’s got an arm around Yunho’s waist. He smells so familiar, of faint metal and rust and peach blossoms, that Yunho leans in and fits the curve of his cheek against the crook of Changmin’s neck, and just _ breathes_.

Maybe he dozes a little, aided by Changmin’s fingers in his hair, and his fingers buried in the thin woollen coat his goblin’s got on, even though it's spring, and warm. It makes shushing noises, where it rubs up against the silk of Yunho’s black work suit. 

“I would say you should have a bed built in here for emergencies as such,” Changmin says, voice low and breath warm against Yunho’s ear. “But I really hope you won’t make a habit out of this.” 

“There is a divan in the next room,” Yunho says thoughtlessly, brain still asleep and clearly without a filter. Only when Changmin bends a startled glare at him that he realises what he’s said. “Er.”

“And you didn’t think-” Changmin presses his lips shut on the rest of his sentence, but the crease between his eyebrows and the way his eyes are rounded in irritation speak volumes in his stead. 

Despite himself, despite how Changmin looks like he’s considering setting fire to Yunho’s hair, Yunho lets himself smile at him, affection leaking into his voice. “You look really handsome when you are cross.”

Those eyes narrow. “Is your brain rotten? How long has it been since you slept?”

Yunho blinks, and cranes his neck around to eye the clock again. The hands reads half past four. “I. Today? Or yesterday? Does the nap you woke me up from- count?”

“No,” Changmin says. 

“Er,” Yunho says.

His goblin just sighs, unadulterated exasperation written over his face and body. His arm is still around Yunho’s waist, and he’s leaning a hip against Yunho’s tea table and Yunho’s leaning into him. “Where’s this secret magical room of yours then? You know your doorways are partial to hiding themselves from me.”

“I can’t sleep now,” Yunho protests. He reaches for the stack of stiff vellum by the side and scans through the crimson Mandarin characters on the topmost one, just to make sure. “I have another case in twenty.”

Changmin’s lips flatten into a wide thin line. Yunho knows he sees how thick the stack of name cards is, for today.

To his credit, he doesn’t harangue Yunho. Instead he just reaches for the paper sack he’s set on the tea table, that Yunho didn’t notice is there till now. 

He’s got a lunchbox in it, which he opens without preamble. 

It houses another sandwich, which he’s delivered often enough to Yunho these weeks as meals that are nutritious and easy-to-eat on the go. 

But now Yunho takes a closer look at the filling, and lifts one side of the bread to reveal a fan of avocado and egg, neatly sliced and beautifully arranged. 

Yunho looks at Changmin then, with stars in his eyes. “Min.” 

“Eat,” Changmin says. His ears are pink and his gaze is shadowed and he’s got his face downturned, and he won’t meet Yunho’s eyes. His tone is brusque, but he’s got a hand at Yunho’s suit lapels, and he’s trying to straighten out the sleep-rumpled creases. “You’ve got twenty minutes, right? That’s enough time. Eat.”

\--

Yunho lifts his head one sunny Thursday to realise that spring is burning itself into summer, when the trees lining the cobblestone street to Yunho’s tea parlour are now robust and green with nary a flower in sight. 

The street itself is empty and devoid of mortals. It’s the usual sight, these days.

It’s been slightly over a month since he’s been home. Changmin is the one that comes to him instead, and serves as a solid, dependable bookend to each individual day.

Thanks to him and his nagging, Yunho’s trying to work on a new habit, of snatching cat naps in the room just off his parlour, when his job allows him to.

Changmin has finally investigated it during one of his visits, when he comes by bringing with him a strawberry-broccoli salad and two of Yunho’s work suits, freshly pressed. 

“Well. It’ll do,” his goblin says, mildly displeased but resigned. He sniffs, “at least it lets you lie down. Remember to use it before you actually keel over, you corpse.”

“It’s nice that you care,” Yunho smiles at him, fond.

\--

Today, there are only two cases. The first one had occurred in the early hours of dawn, and was peaceful. The grandmother he collected had wept at the sight of him. But she had also patted his hands, and drunk his tea willingly enough. 

It is past noon. Yunho’s already on the way to the second case. Time of death is slanted for two-oh-eight in the afternoon.

For the first time in a while, there is only a single piece of vellum in Yunho’s coat pocket.

He might be able to go home tonight, after all, rather than have Changmin make his way to him again. 

\--

Double doors swoosh open on well-oiled hinges, to admit Yunho. 

It’s five minutes to the time of death, and he is in yet another hospital. 

Because Yunho is early, he takes the long way up to the ward in question, his footsteps light taps on the stairs. He still arrives at the particular room marked on the name card with two minutes to spare.

Death rattles are issuing from the bed. The sounds are wet, and gasping.

Yunho bows his head, and tugs his fedora lower across his eyes, and settles in the corner by the window to wait. 

He doesn’t wait long. 

Silence descends, only broken by the flat shrill beep of the machines flanking either side of the bed.

A nurse comes in, looking barely human under the layers of protection she is swaddled in, to do the necessary. Her breath fogs up her goggles, as her head bends over the clipboard she is scribbling. Her writing is proceeding with some difficulty, because her hands are wrapped in hazmat gloves and the pen in a layer of protective plastic covering. 

She backs out after checking for signs of life.

Yunho waits for her to swipe the door close. Then he straightens from where he had been leaning, against the window.

When he turns, the girl is looking at him, head cocked inquisitively. 

If the body on the bed bothers her, she doesn’t show it.

“Hello,” Yunho says.

“Do you know,” she offers in lieu of a greeting, “that you are the first person I’ve seen in a while that looks like a person? Everyone else in the hospital has to wear protective gear. I haven’t seen someone else’s face and skin for some time.”

She is painfully young, gangly limbs barely contained in hospital pyjamas. 

“Am I?” Yunho asks, to humour her. 

“Yes,” she muses. “But ajusshi, I guess it means you’re not really a person, right?” 

She tucks both her hands behind her, and looks at him. 

“You are right,” Yunho allows. 

She huffs out a little laugh at that. Her eyes are very bright, and wet. “I guess that also means I’m not really a person anymore, right?”

“You are right,” Yunho says again.

“Ah,” she nods. “I thought so.”

\--

This girl today is an easy one to collect. 

She accepts her tea from Yunho with minimum fuss, when the sun is still high up in the sky, and drinks it noisily regardless of the heat. 

When the teacup is empty, she doesn’t turn immediately to the door that sometimes isn’t. 

Yunho knows she’s noticed it emerging. But other than a straightening of her shoulders, and a glance towards it, she makes no move to stand. Even though it must be calling to her. 

Instead she remains in her seat, gazing at him quietly. Yunho figures she needs a little more time to adjust, for all that she followed him to his parlour with sure footsteps.

Given that she’s well-behaved, he lets her.

Yunho’s pouring out the excess water from the kettle into the bamboo slats of the tea tray for rinsing, and swiping a towel over its spout, when she speaks.

“Ajusshi,” she starts, and hesitates. Yunho looks up, and offers her a reassuring smile, without pausing in his motions. 

Her pause lingers, and expands in the silence. Yunho goes back to polishing the kettle, to allow her to sort out her thoughts in peace.

“Ajusshi, you,” she starts again, “is it tiring?”

The question is unexpected. Yunho blinks at her. His hand halts, mid-swipe around the kettle’s base. “Beg pardon?”

“What you do,” she clarifies, and flaps a hand that encompasses the tea parlour, and him. “This. You… send us off, right? If my guess is correct. Like the old tales, except without the kicking and screaming and dragging us in chains.”

The humour, out of the blue as it is, catches Yunho off-guard and pulls a snort from him. “Do you require chains?”

“Of course not,” she replies at once. “We’re civilised adults. I’m a civilised adult!”

“Well said,” he smiles at her, which earns him a bashful duck of her head. His breath catches in his throat, because she’s so _ young_. 

He breathes through it, and musters another smile at her, when she glances back up at him.

She’s clearly still mulling over her words. Yunho puts the kettle aside, and folds the rag.

“I mean ajusshi’s… occupation?” She guesses, and goes on, when Yunho offers her a slow nod. “Your job. Yeah. You’re like the doctors and nurses that took care of me, right? They took care of me when I was alive. Now I’m not, and you’re the one taking care of me.” 

Yunho’s struck dumb by the comparison. 

“And I guess,” she hurries on, after another glance at his face. “I guess there’s a lot of us, right? Especially now. So I just thought it might be tiring. It _ is _tiring, right?”

“I can manage,” Yunho says slowly. His voice doesn’t sound like his own. 

Unbidden, his fingers curl, from where they were previously splayed on the table. 

“Of course ajusshi can,” she echoes, wagging her head. “Of course! It’s just… the doctors and nurses cry, when they think I don’t hear them. Last week a doctor ended up having a breakdown right outside my room’s door. He was. Quite loud.”

Yunho breathes through the burn smarting low in his nose, and the back of his eyes. 

“I only want to say that even though ajusshi must be tired,” she rocks in her seat, restless on the stool, “because there must be a lot of us. Even so… Ajusshi, thank you for working hard.”

He stares at her, at this girl who’s still very much a girl. 

From the mouths of babes, indeed.

She’s pleating her fingers together, anxious, and darts another glance at the open doorway. “I think I have to go. But thank you for working hard, and for being nice, and for giving me warm tea. Thank you.”

“Thank _ you_,” he returns. He doesn’t know what else to say. 

The girl just offers him another smile, more settled by his response. She stands, and bows. Yunho gets up too, and mirrors her. 

She turns to go, but just before entering the doorway, she turns. 

“Fight on, ajusshi,” she raises a fist in the air, and gives him another smile.”Thank you for your service.”

The door closes gently behind her. The doorway vanishes. Through the windows that reflect the deserted street outside, warm sunshine filters in, tiny dust motes dancing through its rays.

Yunho stands, and closes his eyes for a beat.

And two. 

Then he opens them again, and relaxes his hands from where he’s got them clenched around the edge of the table. 

His phone is silent. He fishes it out of his pocket anyway, to log into his work email inbox.

No unread emails blink up at him. 

For the first time in a very, very, very long while, Yunho doesn’t have any new cases for the day.

He puts his phone in his pocket, and takes a breath that he doesn’t need, and another.

It’s time for him to go home. Changmin’s waiting. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My love to all frontline health workers pursuing the good fight even though they must be so tired. Keep on keeping on. xx
> 
> Comments are always welcome.


	17. xvii. us

It’s been long and painful and slow-going, but the mundane world recovers, little by little. 

The mortals are still spooked, and quick to distrust.

Most of the time in his very long existence, Changmin forgets to care about them. It’s been too long, and too many years for him to muster the proper energy otherwise. 

As long as Changmin gets his books and his dramas and his wine and his meat, he’s quite content with his lot. He’s learnt to be. 

He pays a little more attention to the goings-on of the mortal children this time ’round, because there’s Yunho now, and Yunho’s directly affected. 

That is, until things happen closer to home, and make him entirely lose interest in the wider world. 

\--

Minseok's grandfather passes, on a beautifully sunny day.

Changmin knows even before Minseok rings him on his new mobile, breathing down the line without saying anything. 

He knows, because the case lands in Yunho's work email inbox, and the name card appears on Yunho's desk.

They are chatting in Yunho's study, casually discussing a new best-seller on the bookshelves in their favourite shop, when a flash of white vellum appears with a flutter.

Changmin waves away Yunho’s apologies, when his reaper turns sideways to check it discreetly. 

They don’t tend to talk much about Yunho’s work. Not the specifics. He knows well enough that there are things Yunho can’t speak about to individuals outside of his profession. Even if it’s him, to whom Yunho’s boss pays actual -and regrettable- attention.

So Changmin doesn’t think too much of it, until Yunho goes still, staring down at the name card in his hands. 

Then he turns back to Changmin, and _ Changmin knows. _

"When?" Is his only question. 

"Fifteen minutes," Yunho says. His voice is gentle. “He’s at home.”

\--

Standing in his bedroom, Changmin picks up Minseok’s call.

His limbs feel wooden. Yunho’s in front of him, and his fingers are messing around Changmin’s collar and trying to unsuccessfully knot a Windsor knot into his tie.

Minseok’s just breathing heavily, and not saying anything. 

Yunho’s patting him on his arm. Changmin looks up from the herringbone patterned floorboards, and at his reaper. He’s fully dressed up in the unrelieved black of his work clothes.

His fedora shades low, and Changmin can only see the sharp blade of his nose, and red lips.

_ I need to go, _ Yunho mouths. _ Three minutes. _

“Go,” Changmin croaks. “I’ll see you there.” 

His reaper nods, tilting his head back just enough to meet Changmin’s eyes. Then he turns on his heel, disappearing in a bloom of black smoke.

With the sound of Minseok’s increasingly shaky exhales in his ear, Changmin takes a few steps forward, to his bedroom door.

He stares at his sleeve-clad arm in slow fascination, and looks down at himself.

Somehow Yunho’s stuffed Changmin into a full three-piece suit. He’s even done up Changmin’s cufflinks for him, black jade glittering at his wrists. 

He feels for his collar, movements slow. Yunho had forgone the tie, but did up his collar instead.

Minseok draws another breath, and says, “Uncle.”

Changmin reaches for his door, and turns the doorknob. 

\--

He steps into the bedroom suite belonging to Minseok’s grandfather, and closes the door gently with nary a click. Everyone straightens at his arrival, anyway. 

Minseok’s seated by the bed. Standing by his side are three of his grandfather’s secretaries, and the housekeeper, and the family lawyer, and his grandfather’s personal physician. 

There are slight sounds from the bed. The cardiac monitor is feeble, with its slow beeps. Changmin keeps his eyes averted.

Behind them and unnoticed by the mortals, Yunho lurks. 

Changmin meets his gaze. Yunho holds up one finger. 

“Out,” he says then, voice scratchy. Everyone looks at him in varying states of incomprehension, except for Yunho.

“Out,” Changmin repeats, louder. 

“Sire,” the personal physician speaks up, “I don’t think hwejang-nim has much time left.”

“_Out!_” Changmin roars. 

The housekeeper jumps, and starts bowing and ushering people. 

“Uncle,” Minseok says again. Both his hands are tightly wrapped around limp fingers gnarled and wrinkly with age.

“Not you,” Changmin states, eyes still on Yunho. “Everyone else. Out.”

When they’ve all shuffled out with due haste, Changmin asks, low, “do you violate any rules if you remove your fedora.” 

Yunho removes his fedora. “I don’t think so.”

Minseok jerks, and clutches harder at the liver-spotted hand in his grasp. “N-nice… Neighbourhood. Brother.”

“We’re not supposed to do that in front of any mundane mortals during working hours,” Yunho explains, fedora in his hands. “But, well. Hello, Kim Minseok.”

“Indeed. We stand here today, none of us mundane,” Changmin smiles, mirthless. “A goblin, a reaper, and an ex-possessed mortal with knowledge of the supernatural.”

The cardiac monitor flatlines. 

Changmin looks at it, and continues, “and a newly dead man.” 

\--

Minseok’s rather inconsolable after that. 

Yunho inclines his head in a small bow, and asks Changmin, “where is his favourite haunt, in the house?”

“The garden,” Changmin says lowly, from over the top of Minseok’s head. “He likes to sit in the garden. Especially now, since it’s summer.”

“All right,” He nods, and looks at his goblin. Every line of him is still, save for the hand that he’s got, patting slowly at Minseok’s shoulder.

“Remember to keep an eye on your mobile,” Yunho tells him, and turns to walk out of the bedroom.

\--

Yunho makes his way down the stairs, central to a grand foyer. His fedora is back on his head.

The summer sunshine beats down on the brim of his hat, as he descends the steps leading from the side of Minseok’s ancestral home, to a garden even more impressive than Changmin’s. 

Where Changmin’s grounds are well kept, with sections and sections of different flowering trees; these gardens are almost too manicured, with perfectly trimmed hedges and scores of neat flower beds. 

He takes a left turn by the roses in full bloom, and continues down a path, through a wooden arch populated by flowering wisteria.

It’s peaceful here. Yunho’s black oxfords make no sound against the grass of the lawns, and the cobble-stoned paths. 

He ducks beneath an awning, and walks on to his current case. 

The sun warms the back of his greatcoat. 

He finds a boy seated on a bench amongst the sunflowers, big golden heads turned towards the afternoon sun, and nodding lazily in the mild summer breeze. 

The boy is small. Seated thus, the sunflowers tower over him.

The name Yunho recites is spare on his tongue. The third syllable barely falls from his lips before the young boy -young once more- turns to look at him, shoe-clad feet swinging idly before the bench, and hands hidden inside the sleeves of his navy hanbok.

It’s rare for Yunho to encounter souls who don't manifest as they were at the time of their passing. Typically this only happens when the soul, conscious at the moment of their passing, yearns deeply enough for one singular moment of time in their life.

The boy smiles at Yunho. “Yes, that is I. So you’re the one His Excellency was waiting for.”

Yunho pauses mid-recitation, startled. “Beg pardon?”

“No need for any pardoning,” the boy is clearly enjoying himself. He stands, and dusts at the silk of his wide pale blue trousers. “So what shall we do, now?”

“Follow me,” Yunho says, holding out a hand.

\--

They’re deep in the historical district, barely a street away from Yunho’s office, when the boy speaks again. The sun is uncomfortably warm against the nape of Yunho’s neck.

“I was this age, when I met His Excellency for the first time,” he informs Yunho, the words slow and calm and belying the small face, childishly round with ample fat.

Yunho’s still holding onto his hand.

In death, he is no longer an old man ninety years of age, but a child with a short stride and little legs that nearly trip twice, over Seoul’s pavements.

Both times, Yunho hauls him back upright, with their linked hands. They walk slowly, Yunho shortening his strides to compensate for the boy’s. 

“Were you scared of him?” Yunho offers, and turns a corner, to the stone walls where his tea parlour sits. 

“Very,” the boy agrees cheerfully. “I was seven and we were at war and being forced to speak the language of our masters, even with how much gold and paper money our family paid them. One evening at dusk, my father dressed me in my best set of traditional clothes, and told me to only look at the floor and answer only when spoken to. Then he took me to a large house where the wall sconces lit themselves, and there was fog everywhere, and I was cold, and there were too many shadows. In the fog- there was a man.” 

Despite himself, Yunho snorts, the sound caught at the back of his throat. Talk about being dramatic.

“He made a lot of gold there and then,” the boy continues blithely. “And called himself my new master and said he would be the only one whilst the others are but pretenders. He told me I won’t die under the boots of the war dogs because he wills me to live, so I’d best be used to the idea of serving him faithfully in a long and well-lived life. After that, I only saw him once a year. It was always at Seollal, until I grew into an adult.” 

Yunho sobers at that. He looks at the boy. 

The boy’s still smiling.

“We’re here,” Yunho indicates his parlour with the hand that’s not clasped around the boy’s. “After you.”

\--

The boy has to be lifted and placed onto the pine-and-oak stool facing Yunho’s tea table, but he settles firmly and squarely onto it, pudgy hands gripping onto the carved sides. 

Yunho already knows which teacup is his, so it takes him but a few minutes to retrieve that, and his tea set from the backroom. 

He comes back out to the boy gazing about the parlour avidly, wide eyes tracking across the space, and lingering on the pair of jade swallows Yunho has on the tea table.

“I didn’t picture it like this,” he says, when Yunho takes his seat across him. “Limbo, I mean.”

Yunho makes a non-committal sound at that.

“No?” The boy guesses, “we’re not in limbo? Or is this Naraka? Purgatory?”

Yunho smiles at him, one hand reaching into his pocket for his mobile. 

“You can’t tell me, can you?” The boy is tickled. “That’s fine.” 

He watches without comment as Yunho turns to set the kettle on the burner, and begins his wipedown of the teapot.

“I don’t suppose,” he asks, as Yunho starts portioning the tea leaves, “if you can tell me how Minseok will fare, moving on?”

Yunho pauses at that. The kettle burbles gently next to them.

He offers a guarded but honest, “I wouldn’t know.” 

The boy tilts his head. “Oh?”

“It’s not part of my job scope,” Yunho informs him ruefully. “That’s a different department all together.” 

“Ah,” the boy shrinks, slightly. For the first time, he looks his age. “I see.”

“But,” Yunho rinses the cup, and the teapot, “he has Changmin.”

They both watch, as Yunho pours the tea leaves into the teapot, and boiling water.

“Yes,” the boy acknowledges, and rocks forward a little, on the stool. “That he does. And His Excellency has you.” 

Steam curls from the teapot, and the boy sits, little stubby fingers steepled together in an oddly adult gesture. 

Yunho presses a finger against the curved black of the clay. 

They still have some minutes. More, if he files the paperwork that he’s already filled in, without Changmin’s knowledge.

A knock upon his parlour door sounds. The bamboo chimes tinkle softly in reply.

The boy looks at Yunho with wide eyes. 

Yunho smiles at him again. “Enter,” he calls.

The door swings open. Changmin stands framed in the doorway.

“Your Excellency,” the boy twists in his seat, looking back in shock. He nearly falls off the stool, and clambers down from it clumsily. 

Changmin shuts the door, without taking his eyes away from the boy, who's now on his feet. 

Suddenly, the tea parlour feels too small, and almost cramped.

Yunho stands, and straightens his cuffs. “I’ll be in the backroom. Call, if you need me.”

He makes to move out from behind the tea table, but Changmin holds up a hand. “No, don’t. There’s no need to- I won’t interfere. This is already good enough. Don’t file the paperwork, too.”

Yunho opens his mouth, and closes it again. 

Changmin finally shifts his gaze up and away, to meet Yunho’s. “I saw it on your study desk a couple of months ago, when I went in to borrow that hardback you’ve got on groupthink. Sorry.”

“No, it’s,” Yunho starts, and shakes his head. “It’s all right.” 

Yunho stands there, a spectator and a bystander in his own parlour, as Changmin and the boy look at each other. 

The boy has been dry-eyed and smiling all this time, with occasional hums of wonder as he observes Yunho. He’s not dry-eyed now. 

\--

Changmin doesn’t know what to say. He’s grateful to Yunho for sending him a text. His reaper has gone out of his way to facilitate this. And yet.

He’s entirely too small for one, this boy from his memories. Changmin’s grown used to conversing with him eye-to-eye.

It feels odd to be bending down to meet his gaze now.

Eighty-three mortal years is both too long and yet a blink in his eye at the same time. 

He crouches down, and sets a knee to the floor, to allow for easier conversation. The boy rubs hard at his face, and tries for a smile. It wobbles at the edges, and steadies. “You’ll take care of him?”

Changmin lets his other knee down, to press against the floor, too. “You know I will. But these days, it’s more the other way ’round. He’s a good boy.” 

“He is,” the boy says, and gasps, when Changmin starts to fold himself into a full bow that would have ended with his forehead against the ground. “Your Excellency!”

The boy gets there first, scrambling with little hands grasped around Changmin’s arms, knees parallel to Changmin’s. “Please, you shouldn’t- it’s unbecoming, milord-” 

Changmin lets him, because he’s getting agitated, and sniffling. From the corner of his eye, Yunho shifts in place with a quiet reminder. “Don’t overwhelm him, please. It’s not good for their souls to experience... stress.” 

He sits back on his haunches, slightly chastened by Yunho's words. The words however, must be said. 

“Thank you for giving Minseok to me,” he says formally, inclining his head. The boy is trembling slightly, but relaxes, when he sees that Changmin has no intention of prostrating himself.

“No,” he returns, voice reedy, “thank you for raising him as your own.” 

He lets go of Changmin. Then he’s the one who bows down very correctly, until his little forehead touches against the back of his hands, stacked upon each other against the cool floor. 

Changmin straightens, still kneeling. But he doesn’t stop the boy, as he performs a full set of the bows, and presses his tousled head of curls against polished wood for a total of nine times.

When the boy stands, it’s with movements fluid enough to surprise even himself. Staring down at his own knees, he pipes, “oh! They didn’t creak.”

Changmin closes his eyes, squeezing them shut with too much force. He takes a breath, and another, and opens them with a shaky exhale. He’s still down on the floor and balanced on his knees. 

The boy is looking at Yunho. “I should drink the tea now, shouldn’t I.”

It’s clear he doesn’t expect an answer, because he’s already moving back towards the table, and reaching for his teacup. 

Changmin gets to his feet, and watches as the boy drains the cup at one go. The words remain cramped and trapped at the back of his throat.

He wants to say everything, and nothing. 

In the end, he stays silent. 

The boy sets the teacup back onto the tea table with a bow towards Yunho, which Yunho returns.

"I think you know what to do," Yunho is saying to him, placid. 

Changmin makes a sound, involuntary. He spins roughly on his heel, and makes himself focus very hard on the wooden lattice of the tea parlour's windows instead.

His vision is clear. He blinks, and blinks again. His vision is clear.

After a while, a cool hand settles at the crook of his neck, kneading. He knows without looking that it's Yunho.

Of course it's Yunho. 

"I have no more cases today," his reaper says, voice hushed even though it's just the two of them in his tea parlour now.

Changmin puts his own hand over Yunho's, and lets it rest. Yunho rubs a thumb across Changmin’s knuckles, and threads their fingers together. 

\--


	18. xviii. alien

The death of Minseok’s grandfather hits Changmin harder than it should. 

Changmin’s no stranger to death. In both causing it, and encountering it, and living it through all these years, and years, and years.

Intellectually, the death of Minseok’s grandfather is but another death in the line of Kims, who have served him faithfully for centuries. 

He knows this.

In relative terms, his relationship with Minseok’s grandfather is more liege-and-vassal rather than anything else. He did not, for example, raise Minseok’s grandfather personally like he did Minseok when he was a child. 

He knows this.

A lot of them have died for him, ever since he was selfish enough to bind their line to him, a long time ago. Minseok’s grandfather is but another name in service of his, and in possession of a relative good death that occurred after a long time, and in comparative peace.

Changmin knows all these. It hurts, anyway.

\--

He’s slow to shake the melancholy off. 

It’s a slow creeping ache, and a lingering frost within him, even as this summer burns hotter than ever for the mortals. As for that; it’s not Changmin’s doing. For once. 

Changmin’s temper fits, if anything and drawing from his own historical experience, results in wild summer storms. 

They’re usually tempestuous and raging; downpours that sometimes end before they even start.

\-- 

He wakes to a hand carding gently through his hair. The fingers trail, light as feathers, over one ear, and . 

“I’m off to work,” Yunho tells him. His voice is hushed, and apologetic. “The heat wave’s not very kind to the mortals in my district. I’ll be back before the sun sets.”

Changmin thinks for a little bit. His brain is still fuzzy and his thoughts are slow. Either from sleep, or ennui, or both. He’s not quite sure. 

“All right,” he says into the pillows. He presses his face into one, and draws a breath, which turns into a lungful of Yunho’s scent. They’re Yunho’s pillows. 

He must be in Yunho’s bedroom, except he hasn’t the faintest how he came to be across the hallway this morning.

Changmin looks up, and at the bed stand. There’s a pot of potpourri there, Yunho’s and sadly shrivelled again from Changmin’s moods.

But Yunho’s still hovering, and he’s biting down very hard on his bottom lip, in a very loud effort to keep words at bay. 

So Changmin sits up, and tries for a smile. He knows from Yunho’s expression that it doesn’t look quite credible. “Work hard. I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Right,” his reaper says. His concern is so thick that it’s nearly tangible in the air. 

“Why am I in your bed?” Changmin asks him, faint and curious. It’s a genuine question.

There’s a relieved edge to Yunho’s smile. Perhaps it’s been quite a while since Changmin actively asks things.

Perhaps it’s been a while since Changmin is active.

“Ah,” his reaper says, tentative amusement colouring his words. “You came over in the middle of the night. I had thought you were conscious while you were doing it, but I guess not.” 

“Oh,” Changmin says, and considers.

He’s sleep-walked before in this too long life, but it hasn’t been a too frequent occurrence. The last time was during the First Great War started by mortal children the previous century, and he had wandered the rubble-filled streets of Keijo while manifesting bars of gold before he was chased down by-

Changmin’s brain shies away from the thought. 

He’s been silent too long. Yunho’s looking worried, again. His fingers are digging grooves into his fedora.

“You’re ruining your hat,” Changmin tells him.

“It’ll live, it’s hardy,” Yunho waves a hand, and closes his mouth. He opens it again. Presses his lips together.

Changmin takes pity on him. “I’ll be fine, Yun.”

“I’ll be back before the sun sets,” Yunho only repeats. He reaches out a hand again, to clasp firmly and reassuringly at the curve where Changmin’s neck meets his shoulder, and leans close. 

Tilting his face up, Changmin allows his reaper to press a kiss against his jaw. He shapes the edges of his mouth upwards. 

Yunho doesn’t look quite convinced. He just presses another kiss, this time to the closed seam of Changmin’s lips, and murmurs a lingering goodbye.

He pats at Changmin’s face again, and vanishes a moment later in a bloom of black smoke.

\--

Changmin lets himself wallow a little more, and inhales. 

He sucks in another breath, a bracing huff, and forces himself to sit up. Flinging a glance towards the outside, he blinks at the fingers of sunshine trying to pry their way in, their entry somewhat hampered by the miasma of fog he’s got creeping in over the floor. 

Then he sighs, and swings his feet off of Yunho’s bed. The fog billows a little, then it behaves and slinks outside obediently, when he glares at it. 

It’s warm enough that the floors aren’t chilled, even though the temperature of the house is climate-controlled, given how both Yunho and he don’t do well in heat. 

He brushes a finger over the wilted purple of the dried lavender on Yunho’s bed stand, and wills them to perk up. They try a little, grey-mauve brightening slightly into pale violet. 

But they too, know he doesn’t quite mean it. They curl back quietly into themselves, when he takes his finger away. 

Changmin sighs, and laughs a little at himself, and at his own damned maudlinism. 

He’s watched enough people leave, and leave him. First as a mortal too long ago, and then later as a wretched creature out of folklore. 

One of the things that go bump at night, as Minseok would have said. 

Given that, one would think he’ll be able to walk off just another mortal death. It’s just one more death, in the line of many deaths. It isn’t the first, and it certainly won’t be the last.

But thinking that just makes Changmin’s thoughts go around in the same damned circle they’ve been going around, for days and days, so he nudges the potpourri again, and frowns in concentration.

They contract unto themselves, frightened. 

He leaves off when they don’t quite rejuvenate like how he wants, and irritation starts to creep in. His worsening mood makes the stalks of dried marjoram quiver, and start to shred themselves in fear, which is the opposite of what he wants. 

Taking his hand away, he watches as they shrink in relief, desiccated once more. Then he takes himself outside, to Yunho’s balcony, in foolish hopes that the sun can burn the sorrow out of him.

\--

The sun doesn’t burn it out of him.

The sun doesn’t do anything except what she’s always good at; inducing a faint mist of sweat to cling to the surface of Changmin’s skin, which in turn does nothing but make him a little sun-dazed, and a lot irritable. 

The sun just beats down, unsympathetic, when he tilts his head back, a hand braced over his temples, to glare up at her.

When she’s high overhead, and looking up at her makes him squint and sunspots dance in front of his closed eyelids, Changmin gives up on his quiet tantrum, because he _ was _throwing a tantrum, and goes back indoors.

A rumble behind him greets his exit.

He turns after he’s closed Yunho’s balcony doors to the outside elements, to see that his ire has summoned summer storm clouds, low and almost purple and angry-looking.

“Sour old man,” Changmin says to himself, and ekes out a mirthless chuckle. 

Darting a glance at the clouds, which makes them sulkily gather at the edge of the horizon, he draws the curtains and makes Yunho’s bed, the silence only broken by low, far-off rolls of thunder.

It’s only fair, since it is only still in disarray because of him. 

Changmin’s halfway down the main stairs before he realises with a start that he’s hungry. 

Thinking that he’s hungry leads him to the refrigerator, which makes him look upon the contents within, and realise with a start they look quite alien -vegan bacon? cheeseburger in a _ can_?- possibly because Yunho’s the one who’s been restocking their groceries, because Changmin’s busy melting into his bed and not in a good way, which in turn makes him think of how Minseok the one who scoffs at them both and usually makes sure their groceries are properly bought, not that it matters much to two undead creatures of the night, which in turn just makes him think of Minseok.

\--

Minseok.

His boy had been inconsolable for precisely three days and three nights, after, well. After.

Changmin didn’t know what to do about him. None of them did. 

After those three days, the fits and tears and screaming had vanished. Minseok had finished the rest of the forty-nine days of classic mourning with cold, clear-eyed stoicism. He’d asked to see the full breadth of the company’s finances after, and the ongoing mergers and acquisitions, and had thrown himself into officially taking over the family’s holdings, and finishing up his MBA, with a vengeance. 

Changmin still doesn’t know what to do about him. He doesn’t know how to talk to Minseok about this. It’s not like he has a proper handle on his own grief.

The one time he tries to make an attempt to speak to Minseok about it, Minseok just cuts across his clumsy fumblings with a quiet but firm, “I can’t, Uncle. Please don’t make me talk about this.”

Changmin had acquiesced, because the last time Minseok had asked something of him so firmly and clearly, they were on the subject of how his body was not quite his body for an unknown amount of times and days. 

Changmin had also acquiesced because the topic itself reminds him all too well that Minseok is mortal, too. 

One day, it’ll be Minseok’s turn, too. 

That’s not something he wants to think about now. Or any time soon.

\--

He’s been staring too long into the refrigerator.

Changmin only comes back to himself when his stomach grumbles in hunger. He looks out the window, at the blue skies outside, and relentless sunshine. 

Save for him, the house is empty, and silent.

Like a tomb, he thinks to himself, and is almost surprised at the quiet bitterness of the thought.

He looks again outside, at the cloudless sky, and down at himself. Someone -probably Yunho, because Changmin doesn’t have a memory of putting these clothes on- has made sure he’s in cream linen trousers, comfortable and soft, and a cambric shirt. 

It’s enough.

Changmin grabs for the nearest house coat he’s got hanging at the cloakroom, and opens a doorway.

\--

He dithers for a fair bit by the lamb cutlets, slightly disconcerted by how many choices there are. He hasn’t been out and about on his own for a while. He can’t quite recall how long it’s been.

Not that long, if it’s still summer. 

But the lamb. 

Changmin would understand if the choices were for the different cuts of lamb, because the taste of a lamb shank is different from a rack of lamb and is yet different to the lamb rump. But instead he’s confronted by identical-looking racks of lamb with shouty signs promoting how they’re from different regions. 

What is the difference between a rack of lamb from Australia, and another from France, and yet another loudly proclaiming it’s the best rack ever from Gyeonggi-do?

“Ajusshi,” the mortal child manning the deli section speaks up. His tone is sour enough to curdle milk. “Are you going to buy anything or are you just going to stare? You can even find ones that move at the petting zoo.”

“What,” Changmin blinks, and moves back a step reflexively. He doesn’t quite like to talk to mortals. Usually Minseok does it for him. 

He halts midway into his step backwards, because he’s stepped on something.

He turns, and an older mortal scowls at him. 

She looks down.

Changmin looks down.

It’s her foot that’s the something he’s stepping on.

She looks back up at him, her scowl deepening. There are a couple of other female mortals behind her, and they’re shooting glances at him, while whispering behind their hands.

He stares at her for a little more, before he remembers that mortals can get prickly while stepped on, too.

In the adjacent section to them, the cheeses start to sweat in distress.

“Ajusshi,” comes again from behind him in irritation. “Are you going to buy anything? Don’t clog up the line. Get out of the way if you’re not getting anything.”

The female mortal’s scowl is so deep that the grooves bracketing her mouth could have been carved in. Changmin’s still standing on her foot.

He blinks. He steps off of her foot. 

Changmin opens his mouth- not to apologise, because he doesn’t apologise to mortals. Then again, he doesn’t speak to mortals he doesn’t know unless he can’t really help it, like that time with the telephones. 

What comes out of his mouth, however, is a faint, “is lamb from Gyeonggi-do better than Australian lamb?”

The question does a remarkable thing. It, together with Changmin’s timely shiver at the chill of the deli section, and absent-minded pulling at the thin woollen edges of his house coat, makes the scowl soften, and waver, before uncurling itself from the female mortal’s face. 

Changmin blinks again. 

\--

He opens the front door to his house, arms absolutely laden with groceries, and walks into a unyielding embrace.

It’s Yunho. 

“You worried me,” is said against his cheek, and Yunho draws back to look at him. His hands are clenched about Changmin’s upper arms, cool fingers pressing hard indentations into the fabric. 

“I thought you were at work,” Changmin says to his reaper.

“Not at sundown,” Yunho points out. His voice is remarkably steady, for all that his hands are very cold and very tight about Changmin. He is still dressed in his work clothes, a looming figure in black. “I said I’ll be done before that. The sun’s setting now.”

“Oh,” Changmin looks out of the foyer’s windows. The sun is a blaze of blood-orange through the trees in his grounds, half-sunk into the horizon. “So it is.”

“Were you getting groceries?” Yunho’s voice is very calm. “That’s nice. I’ll help you put them away.”

\--

It’s only when Yunho’s helping him put away the lamb, already french-trimmed, and without a wince at the meat, that Changmin realises, “you were worried.”

Yunho just looks at him. “You didn’t bring your mobile. I rang.”

“Oh,” Changmin’s forgotten where he’s left his mobile in the house. It’s probably in Yunho’s bedroom as well, if not his bed. 

“All your credit cards were in your study,” Yunho continues, voice still evenly modulated, “as well as that wallet of yours that Minseok had his secretary refresh a fortnight ago.” 

His hands are very steady, as he places the parcels of meat into the chiller.

“I forgot,” Changmin explains, except it’s not much of an explanation. “Both the mobile and the wallet.”

“So,” Yunho hums, reaching for the pallet of white strawberries on the counter.

“Those are for you,” Changmin confesses in a soft murmur. He feels a little cheered up by the quirk of lips his reaper offers him. 

“I’ll eat them well. Thank you,” Yunho says, and tilts his head. “I only have a question. How did you pay for all these?”

“With gold,” Changmin replies. 

“You manifest gold in front of mortals?” Yunho’s voice is strangled.

Changmin stares, because his brain is slow and sluggish from the summer heat and hunger and grief, and gets it only after a few too long beats.

“Oh! Oh, no,” he hastens to reassure, and makes a grab for Yunho's right hand.

Yunho lets him take it, to worry between his own. “No, Yun, of course not. I made to hurry away to one of those walls where mortal children get their money spat out at them, then I said I went to the bank instead and could only pay in little gold nuggets.”

Yunho’s not saying anything yet. He looks like he’s working his jaw about a response.

Changmin waits a little, but Yunho’s still mute. 

“So,” Changmin ventures hesitantly when it doesn’t look like Yunho will say anything else, “when I went back to them. They accepted it, which was natural, I suppose. I did buy quite a bit of groceries. In the end one of the mortal children recommended I get lamb from quite a few places, since I was paying with nuggets. Strange little things, them. So excitable. They kept squeaking. Maybe lamb’s really important to them.”

Yunho huffs out a little laugh, and he moves too fast for Changmin to discern, then.

But his arms are about Changmin again, and his face is buried in Changmin’s hair.

“What is it?” Changmin brings his own arms up around him, and pats at his back. His mind still feels like it’s not firing on all cylinders, but even he can see that he probably had worried Yunho for quite a bit, even before today. “Yun?”

“You’re all right,” Yunho says, low into his ear.

"Am I?" Changmin asks, even though he knows it's not a fair question for Yunho to answer. 

Nevertheless his reaper doesn't disappoint. He laughs a little, and sifts his fingers through Changmin’s hair like he did hours earlier, when he woke Changmin up. "Yes."

Changmin nudges his head backwards, so that Yunho's hand is curved tight about the back of his head.

It prompts another laugh from Yunho, the sound thick with relief. “There you are. You’ll be all right, Min.”

_\----end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depression is very real, and you are the best person equipped to lead the fight against your personal demons. Don't reject any form of aid that comes your way, no matter how small, or how much that voice in your head is telling you it won't help.
> 
> Thank you for reading about two too-boring, too-old supernatural fossils!


End file.
